Crystalline
by Asika
Summary: The master that has been quietly guiding events has decided the time has come to enact their plan, and Mikael and the others find themselves thrust back into conflict as this master strives to shatter not only their own peaceful lives, but that of all of Azeroth itself. World of Warcraft, loosely AU, mostly legit. Warlock Trilogy Book 3.
1. Chapter 1

His clothes were coated thickly with layer upon layer of the heavy, copper-red dirt that was a more common sight than anything else in the Stonetalon Mountains. It made climbing interesting, as it made his grip slick often, but he'd come this far without too much difficulty and knew he would make it to his destination within the hour, slippery hands or not.

The sun was rising in the sky, it was nearly midday and the heat was beginning to wear him out. Darae crammed his lanky form into an outcropping of stone and rested a moment, wiping an arm across a sweaty brow and knowing that he was leaving streaks of grit on his skin like warpaint. He stared up the side of the mountain, knowing that not too far ahead of him was a very small plateau that gave way to sheer cliffs overlooking the Veiled Sea. He'd come a long way from Darnassus for this, and he hoped he'd find what he sought.

He brushed filthy hands against dirty clothes and began to climb again, licking lips chapped from the sun and the wind. When he finally hauled himself up over the edge and rolled onto his back on the plateau, he grinned fiercely up at the sky and could already feel the difference in the environment.

The air became heavier, wetter. The soil here was darker, mossy, and had a more earthy scent to it, a far cry from the reddish brown dust a scant few feet away. He could hear the waves crashing against the rocks far below, but more importantly he could hear the nearby cries of the storm crows.

He rolled onto his stomach, lifting up on his elbows, and watched as far above him dark shapes wheeled around, cutting through clouds and every so often dipping down and disappearing down the side of the cliff, out of his line of sight. Darae had thought that this gathering of storm crows was odd, as the birds main sources of food was fruit and carrion, so their homes here on a cliff beside the sea felt out of place...and then he had discovered through research - both in book and through carefully asked questions of older druids - that here in Stonetalon Mountains were some of the barrow dens of the Druids of the Talon. He hadn't been brave enough to approach the druids directly, but he had seen the entrance to the barrow dens on his way up to this towering plateau.

Now, he need only wait, because if his research held out then...

Sure enough, as he lay there, a huge form dove from the clouds and landed on the ground several yards away. It was a storm crow, a big male, and it flared its wings at him and cawed loudly. Slowly Darae rolled over and rested on his haunches, waiting. Again, the bird cawed and hissed, hopping forward. Again, Darae waited.

Finally, he heard the faintest whisper in his mind.

'What do you want, fledgling?'

"I seek the wind," he said quietly. "I seek knowledge."

'Leave.'

"No."

The moist air was turning the dirt that coated him into a fine paste as he knelt there, waiting and staring steadily at the bird. The bird folded its wings back and cocked its head at him.

'What do you know of the wind? You who walk on the land have no business in the sky.'

"I walk on the land, I swim in the water. Now I seek the skies."

'If the skies are what you seek, then seek them.'

Hopping from foot to foot and cawing in a way that reminded Darae of laughter, the bird dipped its head and gestured toward the cliff edge.

Darae got up and carefully walked over there, kneeling at the edge and looking down. The cliff plunged straight down, at least fifty feet, before it abruptly ended in a pile of jagged stone rising up from the water. The steady crash of waves turned the water surrounding the rocks into a froth and Darae leaned back from the edge with a soaked face.

'So, fledgling. Seek.'

Darae glanced back at the storm crow briefly, then stood and backed up a few steps before breaking into a sprint and hurling himself over the edge.

The air roared past his ears, forced tears from his eyes, tore at his clothing as he plummeted. The force of the air against his eyes was nearly enough to force him to close them, but he squinted and watched as the rocks drew rapidly closer - watched as his death grew rapidly closer.

A movement to his left was all the warning he had. Suddenly the huge male crow was alongside him, and then Darae's body was twisting, changing. The sensation of growing feathers was far more unsettling than growing fur, but he suddenly had wings and his vision sharpened to a crystal clarity as his body shrank and took on a form that, while smaller than the male falling with him, was nearly identical to the male all the same. He thrust his wings out, screeching in pain as the effort of holding them steady against the push of the wind felt more like he was attempting to rip his wings off, but he felt his plummet turn into a controlled descent, and managed to pull up and circle into the sky and leave the deadly rocks far below.

The wind rising from the waves below buoyed him, lifted him rapidly back into the open air. His felt how his feathers in both wing and tail, how the tiniest twitch, could alter his course - beside the graceful male he felt clumsy, like he truly was a fledgling, but slowly he began to grasp the basics of flight as he spiraled up into the sky.

He could see nests lining the cliffs beside him, and now he could see from the state of the nests that these were likely temporary homes for the birds - Darae knew nothing of the migratory patterns of the creatures, but perhaps this was only a place to rear their young before moving on.

The male beside him dipped a wing and fluttered toward the cliff, aiming for a larger nest resting on a rock shelf jutting out from the cliffside as though it had been purposely cut. Darae followed and awkwardly landed just in front of the male, outside the nest but close enough to see in. Six chicks all raised heads expectantly, making quite a ruckus, but the male did little more than briefly nuzzle them before fixing his attention back on Darae.

'Bold, to leap from the cliff.'

Darae tilted his head, flicking his wings in neatly to his sides. 'The first step in learning how to fly is to leave one's nest.'

The storm crow clicked its beak, then hopped to the side until it was perched on the edge of the nest. Slowly the bird form melted away, revealing a night elf male. He was dirty and wearing little more than a loincloth that clung to him, but Darae's eyes were drawn to the antlers rising from the man's forehead. While slender, the antlers were unmistakable and Darae couldn't help but be glad his avian features would hide the fact that he gawked.

The man's gaze was intent, almost a fierce glare, and he gestured idly and Darae found himself dropping to his knees as his bird form was taken from him.

"Stay here," the druid ordered, his voice a deep baritone that seemed to resonate inside Darae's head. "If, at the end, you have not learned how to soar, your choice will be to either climb...or fall. This is your nest now."

Abruptly the man changed back into a storm crow and flew off, leaving Darae alone with the squabbling chicks. He moved back further from the outcrop's edge and threw an arm over the side of the nest, smiling as the chicks moved immediately to investigate this intrusion into their home. As they pecked experimentally at his fingers, Darae looked up the cliffside.

Far above him, easily twenty feet or more, was a vertical climb of rock slick with water, moss, bird droppings, and more. The druid was certainly correct when he said that Darae would either have to find some way up the cliff or fall to his death.

The wind was blowing and he was getting wet - and he jumped and yanked his hands away when one of the storm crows in the nest managed to hook its beak into his thumb - and he was becoming aware of how hungry he was after the climb, not to mention the deep weariness he felt in his limbs. He'd felt this way before; when he'd successfully changed forms for the first time on his own, changing back had exhausted him. His shan'do had assured him the weariness was only a result of being unused to the form, and that proper practice and spending extended amounts of time in the form would condition him. He'd spent months simply changing to and from his chosen form, that of a wolf, to build up his stamina...the druid forcing him into a storm crow form had merely introduced him to a new form he wasn't used to.

Briefly he thought of changing into his wolf form now so his rest would be more comfortable, but then he thought of wet fur and abruptly changed his mind. For now he pulled his knees to his chest and leaned against the side of the nest, wiggling to find a spot where branches wouldn't be digging into his back.

* * *

Up the axe went, down it came. The log split neatly in half. Over and over. He picked up a half and set it back up on the stump he was splitting the logs on, turning the half into a quarter then tossing both quarters into the ever-growing pile of firewood several feet away.

If a storm hadn't uprooted the tree - which had been half-dead to begin with - he wouldn't be chopping this much wood, but something had to be done before the entire tree rotted. Perhaps he'd offer the wood to the farmers closer to Goldshire, as he certainly wouldn't need this much on top of what he had already stored up.

His linen shirt was soaked with sweat and clinging to him, and he was coated in a fine layer of wood chips and bark as he'd been at this wood chopping business all afternoon. He split the other half of the log into quarters, then leaned his axe against the stump and dropped to his knees.

Mikael began brushing his arms off, grimacing as he felt the gritty wood fragments stuck to him roll down his skin, and felt the tender spots on his hands where he'd acquired new blisters.

A strangled scream and a howl had him instantly on his feet, reaching for his axe even as he began to run. He didn't recognize the voice, but the howl...

Ducking around some trees and leaping a bush, he came upon a thick growth of berry bushes that grew along the river of Forest's edge, bushes that appeared to have a small cyclone within them, the branches were thrashing so badly. Another scream sounded, and snarling and growls, both coming from the center of the bush.

"Jhuunom!"

The snarls stopped and the demon leapt from the bush, blood dripping from his maw and running down his front legs. The felhound's spiked suckers waved madly over its head, the spines on its back standing erect in agitation - Mikael had just prevented it from killing, and it wasn't happy.

A low moan and whimpering began to come from the bush now and Mikael let the axe drop from his hands to the ground, wholly unworried about needing it as a weapon now as he bent and peered into the depths of the bush, spying the bottoms of a pair of boots through the leaves. He plunged his hands in and seized the ankles and began to haul the owned of the feet bodily out of the bush, the person he dragged letting up a frightened and pained wail and beginning to try and kick at him.

"Stop it," Mikael said sharply, giving one last heave and pulling the person into view.

It was a young man, blonde-haired and brown-eyed, dressed in threadbare cloth pants and shirt, scuffed brown leather boots. His hands, forearms, and chest had been ripped open and were bleeding heavily, but his injuries took a second seat to what immediately drew Mikael's attention.

Mikael ripped the red mask free of the man's face, crumpling the red leather in one fist, his look now decidedly enraged.

"I have been polite. I have been patient. I have been firm. Now, I'm just angry," he said slowly.

He let the mask drop to the ground and Jhuunom sniffed at it briefly, sitting at his master's heels and growling loudly at the Defias member.

Mikael dropped down to one knee and seized the front of the man's shredded shirt, lifting him into a sitting position.

"What is your name?"

"The D-defias w-will-"

Roughly Mikael shook him, drawing a pained gasp. "Your name?"

"John, it's John," the man wheezed, wrapping hands around Mikael's arm that held him upright.

"Well, John, I want you to deliver a message," Mikael said, shoving him flat against the ground. "Go back and tell your superiors that I don't care where else you may plunder or sneak around, but I will kill each and every single Defias member I catch on my property from this day forth. I asked nicely, I warned you, and now? I'm going to slaughter any red-masked or branded fellow that I see. Understand?"

"The Defias will crush you," John said, swallowing hard.

"Remember this John: I am a warlock. This, this is Jhuunom," Mikael said, patting the head of the felhound. "And the rest of my servants only get bigger in size, and all have tempers to match."

With that he stood and turned his back on the man, ordering Jhuunom to follow. Whether the man lived or died wasn't any concern of his, and frankly Mikael was tired of dealing with the Defias anyhow.

He'd bought this small bit of property that bordered the river separating Westfall from Elwynn, and had had a cottage built with a small stable in the back. The cottage itself had three bedrooms, a sitting room, a kitchen area connected to a dining area, and had a very claustrophobic attic-like space as well. One of the bedrooms was his and Tal'Thera's, one was currently serving as Tal'Thera's workshop and study, and the other...well.

The other had a cradle and a rocking chair, in anticipation of their first-born child that would be coming in about five more months.

It had been an interesting few years, to say the least.

Mikael and Tal'Thera had traveled, had wed. In that time Varian Wrynn had returned to claim his throne, and now a conflict raged in the frozen North as Horde and Alliance alike fought to contain the threat of the Lich King within the continent of Northrend. Together Mikael and Tal'Thera had decided to settle in Mikael's homeland - something that had taken quite a bit of convincing, both of Mikael and of Varian Wrynn himself for Mikael wasn't about to let things appear as though Tal'Thera was a hostile spy in Alliance lands. Varian hadn't like the idea of a blood elf in his lands, at all, but when the couple had told him of their time and travels together and, most importantly, that the two were married and expecting their first child, something in the king's manner had changed.

"...very well," he'd said finally, his stern expression changing to one unreadable. "She may remain on two conditions: any research she does must at all times be available to the mages of Stormwind and in addition she must perform any services asked of her as though she were a citizen of Stormwind."

"Services?" Mikael had asked guardedly.

Varian fixed him with a glare. "If I require that she uses her arcane talents for the good of the Alliance, then she must without complaint."

They had agreed, had arranged for their home to be built, then had settled down eagerly when it was completed. Surprisingly, word got around that a blood elf enchantress was living in Elwynn, and for the first few weeks there were always guards and curious people hovering just out of sight, watching. Finally, someone was brave enough to come to their door, and even stranger still this person wanted to hire Tal'Thera to repair a wand.

Since that first repair there had been more or less a steady stream of people seeking Tal'Thera's talents, and for a while Mikael was both amused and annoyed that they were able to live off of Tal'Thera's earnings alone.

However, along with the people came...the red-masked members of the Defias.

Living this close to Westfall, an area dangerously close to falling entirely under the renegades' control, Mikael had expected to run into them once or twice...but quickly he was beginning to notice more signs of lurkers, prompting him to place powerful wards around his home. When the wards began to show signs of being tampered with, or even worse being disabled, then Mikael had begun to let Jhuunom wander freely. Where the wards didn't stop the Defias, the raging felhound did, much like he had with the man John that Mikael had left bleeding amongst the berry bushes.

The instances were becoming more frequent though, even though the two of them lived nearly within sight of Westbrook Garrison. Mikael stared at his hands, smeared with John's blood, as he walked back to the cottage. He'd been forced into it, but he'd more or less just openly declared war on the Defias...things were bound to get worse now, and he had Tal'Thera and his child to think of.

Clenching his fists, he simply shook his head as he came up to his house and entered. He could hear the faint sounds of Tal'Thera moving around in her study, and so he continued through their sitting room into the bedroom where he quickly changed clothing and then paused in the doorway.

"I'm heading to the garrison," he called loudly, looking toward the study.

Tal'Thera stuck her head through the door, a look of curiosity on her features. "Yet another one?"

"Yeah, and this time Jhuunom nearly tore him apart."

The mage bit her lower lip then sighed. "I will strengthen the wards - in fact, when you return I've devised a new ward for you to try."

"A new ward?"

"Well," she said slowly, looking sheepish. "I think it will work. It combines frost properties with that of your demonic-based energies to trap and disorient. I've calculated the formulae eighteen different times, with the same result each time, so _in theory _it should work just fine."

He came up to her and planted a light kiss on her forehead. "I'll be back before sunset."

She smiled and gave him a hug, then wrinkled her nose as he moved away and headed for the doorway. "Take a dip in the river before you come back, you smell."

"Yes dear," he chuckled.

* * *

A very agitated man, with close-cropped brown hair and clad in the standard armor of a Stormwind soldier, sat behind the desk Mikael had been directed to in Westbrook Garrison.

"Yes yes, what is it?" was the greeting he received as he entered the room.

"I, uh. My name is Mikael Sullivan, sir. I'm here to report-"

"Sullivan eh? James's son?"

"Yes, that's me."

"Sit down," the man said, gesturing at a stool. The desk between them was littered with maps and scrolls, and the man quickly swept several of them straight into the floor as Mikael sat. "What do you need? I'm rather busy."

"Well, sir," Mikael began, shifting to send a dislodged scrap of parchment that had landed on his boot to the floor. "I live not too far from here, with my wife Tal'Thera."

"Ah yeah, the blood elf."

"Er, yes. Anyhow, I knew living in such close proximity to Westfall would mean occasional skirmishes with the Defias. What I didn't realize, however, was just how many."

The man's brow furrowed, and he quickly retrieved a map from the floor and spread it out over the things littering the top of the desk. "Whereabouts do you live?"

Mikael leaned forward and tapped an area of the map on the very edge of Elwynn. "Right about here, near the river and the waterfall. I bought the land recently, we live on the Elwynn side of the river."

The man's look soured. "I had no reports of Defias activity in that region. About how many would you say?"

"Just this week I've seen six men, three of them either falling afoul of my wards or my dem- servants," he corrected quickly. "One was a mere hour ago."

"Did you tell them anything?"

"The first one to approach me wanted to buy my property. The next warned me he would see me driven off within the month. This last one got quite a bit bloodied, and I gave him a warning: I'm through being tolerant, I'm going to start killing any further Defias I see."

The man growled and rubbed his temples. "I see. Well, I suppose it would have come to this point regardless, but I do wish you'd come here sooner. The Defias have carved out small areas of Elwynn, put them under their control, and if they're making another push for territory well...by the Light, I need a drink."

Mikael stared at the map, chewing on his lower lip. "Do you think I was wrong to threaten?"

"Wrong? Gods no. It seems the only thing the dirty thieves understand is violence. I will deter patrols from areas we know to be clear of the bandits and have them patrol the river around your home. I need to know more about this."

"Thank you," Mikael said, smiling gratefully. "I've a wife and a little one on the way, the extra patrols will help me keep them safe."

Standing, the man held out his hand to him. "Congratulations on the kid."

Mikael stood as well and shook the hand. "Thank you. I'll take my leave now."

"Eh, now, wait just a moment," the man said quickly, starting to move around the desk. "I need you to do something for me."

"What's that?" Mikael asked warily.

"I'm going to write a quick note, and all I need for you to do is carry it to Sentinel Hill. Deliver it to a fellow named Penson, he replaced Stoutmantle when the man headed off north."

"Er..." Mikael smiled faintly, chuckling some. "I uh, kind of promised my wife I'd be back by sunset."

The man laughed at that. "Well then! Take it tomorrow." He came around and threw an arm around Mikael's shoulders, leading him toward the door. "I'd send a courier myself but I currently need every able-bodied man. Will you do it?"

It would only be a quick trip over and back. Why not? "Sure."

"All right, see you in the morning then."

Mikael nodded and left, letting his steps take him back home.

* * *

She turned to him, her servant that had swathed his body in white cloth wrapping in such a way so the only visible part of him was his eyes and a tiny bit of skin around them.

"Go on, you know what your task is."

He bowed to her, deeply. "Yes, mistress."

She watched as he abruptly faded from view, like a ghost in the morning sun. Smiling, she surveyed the room. This cavern was once home to a religious group of trolls, all following some ridiculous nature spirit, revered as a goddess – one cavern of three, this one and one another having already fallen. Oftentimes she had debated taking the third as well, but her research was over regarding the mysterious trees - they had proved to be objects of power, that much was true, but not quite the sort of power she desired and required. And while they had also allowed her to tap into the raw negative energy of the Nightmare that existed within the Emerald Dream, in reality it wasn't quite the source she was looking for.

It had taken precious little effort to manipulate those simple-minded idiots under the command of that troll Jin'Loki, and it had taken little effort to gently guide the troll to doing the woman's work for her. The results had been less than useful: Jin'Loki had been under her sway, yes, but she'd almost killed one of the woman's most precious assets on this pathetic world.

She had no intention of losing her precious child to the troll's little trees - in fact, she almost HAD, and would have, had the meddling green dragons not interfered and snatched him from the troll's grasp.

Indeed, she had no intention of losing the child she had cultivated and watched with growing interest...even though her experiments called for possibly losing him anyway. Truthfully, if her child died so easily then he would have ultimately proven to be useless to her in the future, but it didn't mean she couldn't hope for the best for him.

Now, she just needed to find him again.

Her wayward child. Her legacy.

Her brightest moment would become Azeroth's darkest hour.


	2. Chapter 2

He hauled himself up off his pillow and tucked the light blanket back around his wife before swinging his legs over the edge and standing up. The soft woven rug beneath his feet had been made by Tal'Thera - and by hand, not by magic, something she was immensely proud of being as she had never tried it on her own before - and, as always, he had to make sure he didn't trip over the edge like he tended to do when he got out of bed before fully waking up.

Tal'Thera sat up as he was dressing, her top half bare as the blanket crumpled and lay around her waist.

"I'll be back soon," Mikael said finally, tugging on a shirt and leaning to kiss her good bye.

She kissed him then kept a hold on his collar. "And when you get roped into helping root out the problem?" she asked quietly, raising an eyebrow. "You know you will, and you know you will help."

Mikael chuckled some as she let go and he straightened. "I know I know." He gestured and Jhuunom appeared at his feet, tongue lolling out of his mouth as the demon grinned.

"No, you don't get to eat anyone," he said dryly, and the grin disappeared. Mikael knelt and rested a hand heavily on the demon's head. "Now listen, I'm going on a short trip and while I'm gone you are to obey Tal'Thera as you would me, do you understand?"

Jhuunom's look decidedly soured.

Mikael gripped Jhuunom's skull and held him like he would a disobedient puppy. "I said, do you understand?"

The demon growled an affirmative and Mikael let him go and stood back up. "He'll protect you while I'm gone," he said, moving to their small closet to collect his traveling cloak. "There will also be patrols diverted from the Westbrook garrison in this area, you should be safe while I'm out playing errand boy."

Tal'Thera nodded, getting up and beginning to dress. "I'm not overly worried, you have taught me well."

He grinned, thinking of the effort he had spent in easing Tal'Thera into defensive magic. The blood elf still balked at the thought of killing anyone, but he had at least convinced her that there's no shame in killing to protect yourself at least - and he wisely never mentioned how she herself had threatened to kill that day back in Booty Bay when she'd been given her freedom.

He flung his cloak over his shoulder and turned once more to Jhuunom. "Under no circumstances are you to leave Tal'Thera, got that? Not even if Elervina tries forcing her way to this plane. Do not leave Tal'Thera's side," the warlock said firmly, slowly and filling each word with the weight of a direct order he knew the demon would be unable to disobey.

With the grumbling of his demon in the back of his mind, Mikael left.

* * *

Saliea didn't bother knocking, she never had to, as she entered Fandral's office at the top of the tree. The Archdruid was pacing as he usually was when deep in thought, though he paused and gave her the briefest of nods when she came in.

"Good morning," she said, dropping into a chair across from his desk, even though that put the male pacing behind her.

She heard his steps begin once again after a grunt of acknowledgment and patiently waited. Finally, after several minutes of silence broken only by the sounds of his footsteps, Fandral came around and settled in his chair across from her.

"Catri and Jakani are...?"

"Sevei has taken them to the Exodar for a few days, to visit with their grandparents," Saliea answered, smiling. Her little daughter Catri was proving to be as mischievous a toddler as Saliea had once been, and Jakani was likely going to imitate his sister when old enough. Savion and Sechi would be seeing the two for the first time, and while Saliea wished she had been able to accompany Sevei she was also moderately relieved to have a few days of rest where she could catch up on housework.

"And Darae left?"

Saliea nodded. "He left several weeks ago, seeking the Druids of the Talon up in Stonetalon."

Fandral frowned. "And you allowed this?"

"He is the same age I was when I began to explore the boundaries of the world," Saliea said, raising an eyebrow. "Are you about to criticize the way I am raising my children?"

"Of course not," Staghelm said bluntly. "I am merely inquiring about my grandchildren, and of the training of one of my druids."

"One and the same, in Darae's case," Saliea laughed. "What did you want to see me about?"

The Archdruid leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk and steepling his fingers before his face, bouncing the tips of his pointer fingers against his lower lip, his eyes closed. He was silent for several moments, then opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on her.

"A foul wind is blowing," he said quietly, voice barely a rumble. "I'm not sure from where, and I don't know when the storm it heralds will reach us, but something dark is on the horizon."

"Something dark is always on the horizon," she replied, blowing out a sigh that ruffled her eyebrows. "If it isn't cultists here on Azeroth, or the Legion in Outland, or the war against Arthas and his Scourge in the north...we're spread so thin it's amazing something hasn't found a hole yet."

"It's admirable we've held on for so long," Fandral agreed, leaning back in his chair. "However, this new problem is elusive, fleeting. I cannot pin down anything on it, merely a feeling of dread upon the back of my neck."

"What do we do then?"

"I...do not know. Even the green dragons have been uneasy as of late."

Saliea stretched her legs out in front of her, slumping down in her chair. "Then...what CAN we do?"

"For one, get my grandchildren back to Darnassus," Fandral said dryly. "I'd feel better if I knew they were within arm's reach of me."

"They are currently surrounded by draenei and within arm's reach of Prophet Velen," Saliea chuckled. "Where else on Azeroth could possibly be safer?"

He gave her a sour look, then stood. "You know what I mean. Walk with me."

She got up and followed him out of the room and together they strolled down the ramp winding around the outside of the tree. Surprisingly he led her all the way down and out of the tree entirely, and now they began to walk slowly through the Cenarion Enclave, standing in the shadows of the huge trees.

Fandral reached out and placed a hand on the trunk nearest to them. "I believed that planting Teldrassil would once give us our immortality back...immortality was a great gift, and the races of this world do not know what a gift we sacrificed to end the threat of the Legion."

"One could argue that being as it was our ancestors that drew the Legion here in the first place, that our sacrifice was a fitting punishment for the horror released," Saliea said quietly.

"The world was much simpler when our race as a whole was sequestered from the rest of the world," Fandral said bluntly.

"One cannot change the course of history," she responded. "Why are we down here?"

Staghelm rubbed his fingers on the bark, inhaling deeply. "I wanted to ask you when you believed you would feel up to teaching again."

Head tilting to one side she looked at him, confusion on her face. "When I feel up to...? I, well, when Jakani is old enough to walk on his own my life will certainly become simpler - granted, Sevei could always look after the children, and Darae could as well. Arrangements could be made, I could even have the children with me providing you hand me another beginner druid. Why bring me out here to ask?" she asked, halting her stream of spoken thought abruptly.

Fandral looked at her, his face twisting into a bizarre combination of amusement and sternness. "I am not 'handing' you another beginner druid. I am assigning you a group."

Saliea stared at him blankly. "...a group? But, only - only the masters among the druids teach in groups. They're the only ones considered wise enough to capably guide several at one time."

Slowly one of the Archdruid's eyebrows raised.

Saliea's eyes bugged in her head. "What?!" she sputtered. "You're...you can't...I'm not nearly so learned as other druids, why are you-"

He held up a hand to silence her. "You are more knowledgeable than you care to admit, and currently you are the only druid within the boundaries of Teldrassil that is well-versed in the feral aspects of the druidic path."

"I am not! Garret is-"

"Garret has departed to Moonglade and there intends to stay," Fandral interrupted. "Why do you doubt yourself so much?"

Saliea was shaking her head violently, backing away from him. "I'm not ready to become a master, I'm not. I'm too young, I'm too stupid, I'm..."

Fandral straightened and tucked his hands behind his back, staring down his nose at her. "I believe I am the ultimate judge of a druid's abilities, and if I say you're ready then you are ready. Now tell me when you believe you'll be able to handle a class."

"Never!" she snapped, staring up at him. "Foster father, you've said and done some stupid things in the past but this certainly is a new milestone!"

His eyes flashed. "Give me an answer or I will choose for you, _daughter."_

"I believe the human expression is 'not until the hells freeze over.'"

Fandral's arm shot out and grabbed her collar, tugging her nose to nose with him, leaving her feet dangling off the ground. "You, of all people, should know well that I never do or say anything I don't seriously mean," he growled into her face.

Saliea flung both arms up and gripped the arm holding her aloft. "And you should know I speak whatever is on my mind, especially with you."

"What is so horrible about my recognizing you as a master?" he said, plunking her back onto her feet but keeping his grip on her.

"Because I don't feel I've earned it!" she snarled, tearing his fingers off her collar and shoving his arm away. "Oh, look at the tiny druid, Fandral's favorite, elevated to a master status solely because the Archdruid likes her!" she went on in a sing-song, mocking voice. "There are others out there with centuries more experience than I, and you want to give such an honor to ME? How do you think that is going to look? How did you ever think it would look as anything but?"

"There are already enough whispers doubting your own ability to lead," she went on quietly, hardly more than a growl. "I'm not about to add to those rumors by accepting a position that I have not earned."

Fandral stared hard at her. "...shut up."

"What?"

"Shut up," he hissed again, gaze sliding to his left. "Did you hear that?"

* * *

The traveler was a lone night elf, clad in heavy plate armor that was a dull gray and dented and scratched to the point it was a wonder what the armor had originally looked like when first crafted. Strapped across his back was a gargantuan blade, point-down and leaving a shallow furrow in the snow behind the traveler as he slogged through the fluffy white.

His breath whuffed out through a mask covering the bottom half of his face, a mask that seemed crafted of featureless porcelain - and enchanted so anyone who spied the traveler would be unable to recall what he had looked like. Ice crystals were beginning to form around the mask's edges, and while the traveler was more or less unaffected by the cold he was certainly growing tired of walking through it.

But he needed to walk through it, for to enter in his true form unannounced would be rather rude and would also call attention to himself. He only wanted the attention of one particular person in this region, and he knew that as soon as he had stepped foot into this territory that the person he sought had become aware of his presence.

He only needed to wait until -

A huge shadow glided over him and he paused, waiting. He had been mainly keeping to the road, or just off of it, so there was plenty of room for the blue dragon to land.

But it didn't.

He tried not to brace as the dragon wheeled around in the sky and came down in a swoop, snatching him up in one giant claw and carrying him back into the sky. Nestled in the palm, tucked in close to the dragon's chest, he reached up to readjust the blindfold across his eyes, the dragon having knocked it askew upon grabbing him - beneath where the blindfold had shifted his eyelids burned in the sudden cold, tingling as they were once more protected by the cloth as he pushed it back where it needed to be.

They soared for an hour or so, traveling deeper into the middle of Winterspring, until finally the dragon's passenger felt the dragon dive. Moments later the hand encircling him opened and he found himself in a cavern lit softly by free-hanging globes of blue light.

He was carefully set on the ground, sinking into the snow up to mid-calf as the dragon settled in front of him.

"You could have merely flown here, you know."

Pathora reached up and tugged off his mask, scratching at his beard. "No, actually. I could not."

The blue cocked his head to the side, snorting and kicking up a brief flurry of snowflakes. "Is this really so urgent as you say?"

Pathora nodded.

The dragon nodded as well, and seconds later his form began to shift and shrink. In a moment a blonde, lean high elf with abnormally bright blue eyes and clad in tunic and pants the color of a spring sky stood in front of the blindfolded, armored and armed night elf. "So tell me, Xialakus, what was so important you had to sneak out here to see me?"

Pathora grimaced. "I wish you wouldn't use the word sneak."

The blue-turned-elf grinned then tugged at his clothing. "Why, because it makes you feel mortal?"

"No," the green replied bluntly. "Because it is all too true."

The blue's jaw dropped open a moment, then he shut it quick enough his teeth clicked together. "I think you'd better begin talking."

"I'll do even better than that," Pathora said grimly, reaching into his backpack. He pulled from it a book that was purple and black, with emerald threading that both bound the book together and also spelled out the book's title in strange sigils down its spine. Gently the green opened the book and from it removed a sliver of smokey crystal.

Th blue dragon leaned in curiously. "And this is?"

"I honestly do not know," Pathora sighed. He immediately launched into a retelling of everything that had happened two years ago, in the well far beneath the surface, his expression growing grimmer as he explained the odd disruption with the powers of the green dragons, and of the interference within the Nightmare.

"This crystal came from the single blood elf my flight happened to save from whatever the interference was," Pathora went on, tipping the crystal into the blue's palm.

"And this is the same sort of crystal that was on the corrupted tree?" the blue asked idly, holding the crystal up to one eye and peering through it.

"It is."

"What does this mean?"

"I know not. Someone knows a great deal more about us than they should. At least about my flight. But if they know enough about the greens to disrupt them in such a way it is my guess - and She of the Dreaming agrees with me - that they may very well know enough about the other flights as well."

"It is the Demon Soul all over again," the blue whispered, staring at the floor in thought. A moment later he shook his head and clenched a fist around the crystal shard. "Why come to me with this? Why not take this directly to Malygos?"

"Ysera advised against that," Pathora growled, a brief look of frustration crossing his features. "We all know how Malygos is these days."

"I better than you," the blue interrupted dryly.

"Yes. And we do not want the Aspect to catch wind of this. Not yet. Not when he is so crazed that he may jump to any conclusion that struggles its way through his insanity."

"So you fear the mortal races are in danger from my master? More than they are now, that is?" the blue asked in surprise.

Pathora nodded, once. "Look at what he does to mages. If he somehow were to come to believe this threat was caused by mortals he may take it on himself to purge whatever unfortunates he believes to be responsible."

The blue inhaled deeply, held it, then sighed heavily. "You are correct, of course. In the two years the greens have been studying this thing, no one has any inkling of who did it or what it was truly for?" he asked, holding up the crystal.

"No. The crystal has an odd property to it. It absorbs magic and takes on the properties of whatever magic school is applied to it. When it isn't absorbing magic is remains in the neutral state you are now holding. Try casting around it."

The blue held the crystal in his left hand and cast with his right, dropping sparkling motes of magical snow onto its surface; instantly the crystal flared and began to glow with an inner blue fire. He began dribbling static bolts of arcane now, and the blue fire dulled and began to take on a purple hue. The blue dragon cycled through all schools of magic, the crystal changing color with each new application until he held a crystal so swirling with color it nearly hurt to look at it.

"This is unnatural."

"It is," Pathora agreed. "And because of its odd nature we cannot pin down anything certain about it."

"And you brought it to me because you trust me that I won't tell Malygos of any of this."

Pathora nodded slowly. "I trust you, Avlegos, and Ysera too speaks highly of you." He held out his hand and Avlegos handed the crystal back. "I leave the book with you. I nor any of my flight have been able to decipher it. I now take this crystal to the red and the bronze, and then to the blacks if I can find any willing to listen."

"You honestly think the blacks are going to care?" Avlegos said, his expression sour.

"Whatever this is endangers all flights," Pathora said firmly. "At least this way I may determine if the blacks are behind this."

"Oh they aren't, Neltharion would have been bragging about it by now if they were," Avlegos snorted. He took the book from Pathora and watched as the green tucked the crystal into his belt. "Would you like for me to carry you back to the borders?"

"No. I will walk. When I reach the borders I will fly."

With that Pathora snapped his mask back on and headed out into the snow once more. He spent the entire day walking, and finally found himself at the border of Winterspring. He wiped a crust of ice off the edges of his mask, knocked the frozen stuff off his boots, then raised his arms high and began to change forms.

Dragons are most vulnerable when sleeping or, as Pathora was now, when changing forms. He had heard nothing, sensed nothing, and so was dreadfully surprised when his chest suddenly exploded in white-hot agony, and he looked down to see the front of his armor parting like a blooming flower. A bloodied hand jutted from his chest, and he watched as it clenched into a fist and then plunged back through him and sent fresh waves of paralyzing pain through his body.

The world tilted and now he was laying face-down in the snow, the cold upon his face being the only thing making him aware of his continued existence. Rough hands seized his shoulders and flipped him over, and now he stared up into...

A humanoid of some sort stood over him, wrapped so thoroughly in white cloth that all Pathora could see were the eyes, and backlit by the fading sunlight so truthfully all he could really see were two liquid dots against the glare that he assumed were eyes. The humanoid knelt down, his left arm soaked in bright red blood nearly to the shoulder, and Pathora stared dully at it, remembering seeing it burst through his chest only moments before.

"You really shouldn't take that which does not belong to you," the humanoid said. Its voice was deep, so a male, likely a human though it could easily be an elf - either race of elf. Pathora could only lay there, feeling the cold seep in, as the man patted him down then withdrew from his belt the shard of crystal. The man pocketed it, then stood and flexed his blood-soaked arm, stiffening his fingers.

The green dragon Xialakus, Pathora the Blind Fighter, watched the fingers descend for his throat.

* * *

Together the family sat outside on broken steps that had once led down into the Exodar. Jakani buried his face against his father's neck, one tiny arm thrown over Sevei's shoulder while his other arm was curled in against his own chest, fingers clutching at his own lower lip. He, like his sister, looked mostly night elven except for his eyes and the faintest trace of a raised area on his forehead, a diamond-like bump that more resembled the markings of a draenei female.

Sechi chuckled at her grandson. "Shy one, different from his older sister," she said, turning to look at where Savion played with Catri. Grandfather and granddaughter both sat in the floor, rolling a ball back and forth, Catri giggling as though it were the greatest game in the world.

Sevei gently bounced the boy in his arms. "Not when it is just us at home he's not," he said dryly. "Come now son, this is grandmother. Say hello at least?"

Jakani peered at Sechi with eyes the same brilliant blue as his sister's, then shook his head and once again hid against his father. Sevei just chuckled and then pulled him away; Jakani's eyes went wide in panic as Sevei simply handed the boy over to Sechi.

"There there, I'm not so scary, am I?" Sechi crooned, leaning the whimpering boy on her shoulder and rubbing his back.

Jakani shoved at her and strained back toward his father, but Sevei merely folded his arms and shook his head.

"Papa!"

Catri came toddling up to him then with her ball clutched in her little hands. "Papa! Gappa play!"

"It's grandpa," Sevei gently corrected, sweeping her up into his lap.

"Gappa play! Ball!"

Savion had followed her over and settled in the floor next to Sechi, on the side she held Jakani on. Now the boy had both the strange woman and Savion to worry about, and he strained away with grunts and moans.

"Brasser wan' down."

"Yes, brother wants down, but he needs to stay there and say hello first," Sevei said, bouncing Catri lightly on his knee.

"Brasser, hi," Catri chirped, reaching up to shove the first two fingers on her left hand into her mouth. Sevei quickly pulled them out. "Brasser hi."

Jakani pursed his lips and scrunched up his face, still struggling to get away.

"He'd be fine if Saliea was here," Sevei said wryly. "He's never this quiet when he's around his mother."

"Kindred spirits," Savion said, his voice startling the boy so he spun around and stared at the huge draenei. "Both are stubborn souls."

Sechi settled Jakani so he was sitting in her lap, facing Sevei. "Saliea could not join you?"

"She wished to take this time to catch up on housework and her druidic duties."

"Mama kitty," Catri said, popping her fingers back into her mouth.

"Mama kitty indeed," Savion laughed. Catri grinned and dropped her ball, which hit the floor and bounced neatly into the paladin's lap. Savion picked it up and jokingly hugged it to his chest in one huge hand. "Mine now."

Catri spat her fingers out. "No, mine."

"Nope, all mine."

The girl looked up at Sevei, frowning. "Papa, ball! Mine!"

"If you want it, go get it," Sevei replied, sitting her on the ground as she began to squirm free. She stumbled over to Savion and half fell into his lap, both hands going for the ball he held teasingly just out of reach.

"I'm not sure who the child is here," Sechi said after a moment as the 'fight' for the ball degraded into Savion merely tickling Catri and sending the girl into wild laughter as the ball rolled away, forgotten.

"I apologize if I am interrupting something."

Sechi and Sevei looked away from the spectacle of the paladin and the little one wrestling in the floor in time to see Prophet Velen bend down and retrieve the ball. Smiling as he too took in the scene of Savion and Catri, the ancient draenei came forward and, to their surprise, lowered himself onto the steps with them.

"Prophet," Sechi and Sevei murmured, bowing the best they could. Both they, and Sevei himself, seemed shocked and outright in awe of the ancient draenei – the Prophet did not often walk among the rest of the draenei, so to see him _here_ and sitting with them...

"Please, there shall be no formalities this day," Velen said, waving his free hand dismissively.

"If there something wrong...Prophet?" Sechi asked, apparently having lost the inner battle over whether to obey him and dispense with his title or not.

"No, I merely wished to see the little ones myself," he replied with a warm chuckle. "Word has reached me about their mother, I had wished to perhaps speak with her but I see she is not present."

Sevei shook his head. "No, she remained in Darnassus with other duties."

Velen nodded, then leaned forward and bent down to be on the same level as Jakani. "Hello there young one."

Jakani simply stared, wide-eyed, again pulling at his lower lip with his hands. Velen chuckled and sat up once more, carefully setting the ball on the ground at his feet.

"I trust everything is well with you and yours?"

Sevei nodded. "Yes. I never knew such happiness in life existed."

"Children are such miracles," Velen said with a smile. "It reminds us of why securing the future is so important."

"Prophet, it is wise for you to be so exposed?" Sechi interrupted, looking mildly nervous.

Velen stood. "I doubt there are assassins waiting behind every tree, and the guards I ordered to remain inside share your uneasiness." He paused as Jakani suddenly lunged up for him, grunting and waving his arms. To everyone's surprise Velen bent and lifted the boy easily. "Well now, good to meet you. What is your name?"

"His name is Jakani," Sevei answered. "We named him after a friend, now deceased."

"A fine name. I am Velen," the Prophet went on. Jakani seemed more interested in exploring the draenei's beard than in talking, and Velen turned his attention back to the others. "You should come back inside. The air grows heavy, like a great storm approaches, and your children should be as protected as they can be."

Sechi and Sevei looked at one another in confusion: the sky above them was clear and sunny, and Sevei could feel no hint of an approaching storm. They got up and got Savion's attention, the paladin swinging Catri up to his shoulders, and together moved back inside the Exodar. Sevei tried to keep his expression neutral, the troll Jakani's words coming back to memory...one of Sevei's sons would be a being of great power. That the Prophet himself had come to see the shaman's children put a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he looked at his son Jakani.

He tried to swallow his uneasiness as he followed the others inside.

* * *

Mikael swung off his borrowed horse and walked up the incline that led into the watchtower in Sentinel Hill, the dead grass crunching loudly underfoot. When he entered the tower he had to pause and blink a few times to adjust his vision to the change in lighting, and by the time he could see clearly again there was a short, lean man with a beak-like nose and greasy shoulder-length red hair standing in front of him.

"Are you Penson?" Mikael asked, rubbing at his eyes.

"That I am, now who are you?" the man replied. He was clad in studded leather armor that smelled badly of sweat and dirt and barely came up to Mikael's shoulder in height.

"My name is Mikael Sullivan, Jared sent me."

"Jared's the fellow in uh, Westbrook right?" Penson asked, scratching his head. Mikael could hear his nails rasping over his scalp.

"Yes," Mikael answered, glad he'd finally thought to ask the man's name. He pulled a tightly rolled leather scroll from his belt and handed it over. Penson opened it and scanned its contents, then ground his teeth together and clenched the leather in his fist.

"Fantastic, like I don't have enough problems here. All right, well, uh -" He let out a loud whistle and a young female, barely into adulthood, hurried in and saluted. "Here, take this and have it scraped so it's useable again," he ordered, tossing the leather to her. She clumsily caught it and left, and Penson again scratched at his head and gestured for Mikael to follow.

"Look, we got problems here," he started, leading Mikael back outside and down the hill. "The Defias aren't easy to contain, and now that I'm head of the People's Militia here, that's going to change if I have any say about it. This news here, while surprising, I guess isn't hard to believe it happened you know?"

"The way I see it, you've got an issue on your hands," Penson went on. "You issued a challenge and now the Defias are going to answer it."

"I know, but what else was I supposed to do?" Mikael sighed.

Penson shrugged. "Not saying you were wrong, far from it actually. You sent a clear message that you aren't going to be pushed around like the farmers they drove off. They'll think long and hard before striking at you, if they even bother. They'd be dumb to think you wouldn't tell anyone about it...say, have you done anything about it?"

With that Penson's tone had changed; he was trying to appear casual and curious, but the abrupt shift in tone had already hinted to Mikael that he was about to be accused of something.

"What are you asking?" the warlock asked wearily, wondering what it could possibly be this time.

"I'll show you."

Penson led Mikael down toward what looked like a sawmill and an inn. Both looked to be in sorry shape, like something had just recently crushed them from above. He could see where workers patched holes in the areas of the roofs that were still mostly intact, while others sawed and cut what appeared to be new ceiling beams. Behind and between the two buildings was a small building, almost a lean-to as it had the look of being recently and hastily constructed. Two men stood at the building's only door, while a third patrolled around it.

Penson walked up and the two men saluted and stood aside to allow Penson and Mikael to enter. Inside it was hot - there were no windows - and dimly lit, and also faintly claustrophobic due to a low ceiling and the size of the building itself which seemed to barely be six foot square. A low cot was shoved against the far wall under two lanterns mounted to the wall - at first Mikael wondered at the use of flame inside a wooden building but then realized that anyone held in this makeshift prison would essentially commit suicide if they tried to use fire to escape.

On the cot was single, heavily bandaged man, and when Penson and Mikael stepped inside the man looked up at them. When his gaze fell on Mikael he groaned and shoved himself upright.

"You!"

He lunged at Mikael, Penson deftly catching him and shoving him roughly back onto the cot.

"You! You set the demons upon us!"

"John?" Mikael stuttered.

Penson looked back at the warlock. "You know him?"

"He's the man my, uh, my dog, caught on our property," Mikael said.

John curled his hands into fists, trembling on the bed. "They came on us in the night, slaughtered all of them in the camp. I came back as they were leaving," he growled. He jabbed a finger at Mikael. "I didn't even get to carry your warning!"

"Shut up, mangy dog," Penson spat, turning to gently push Mikael out of the prison.

"So, I'll give you a chance to explain yourself," he said once they were both outside.

Mikael simply shook his head. "I have no idea. I didn't send anything after anyone. What did he mean, slaughtered the whole camp?"

"Apparently the men you kept seeing on your property had a camp inside the border of Westfall, far enough back from the river as to be unseen and unnoticeable from your side. That man - John, was it? - came stumbling toward the mines here, bleeding and out of his mind. I had just returned from riding up to check where he claimed demons appeared. Not a blinking thing up there, not even a sign of the camp he claimed was there." Penson waved at the guards, both going back to standing at attention on either side of the door, then began to lead Mikael toward the broken-down inn. "I don't know what he's raving about, and apparently neither do you."

Mikael pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes and sighing. "I swear to you all that happened on my property was he got bloodied up. He ran afoul of my-"

"-dog, right," Penson finished. "I'm not blaming you for anything, the only good Defias is a dead one if you ask me."

"I don't care much for killing without reason," Mikael said dryly.

"If you'd seen half of what they've done here, you'd change your mind," Penson retorted. "All right, look. It's getting late in the day, so tell you what: you ride with me up to this so-called camp, tell me if there's any demons or fiends or whatever lurking about. We'll see what we can find because, after all, this concerns you as well if they're sneaking from there over to your homestead right?"

"Right," Mikael said, inwardly smiling as he recalled Tal'Thera predicting he'd get roped into handling the problem. "I'll get my horse."

* * *

Later Penson and Mikael slowed their mounts as they approached the supposed location of the Defias forward camp. The place looked much the same as the rest of Westfall - dry, dusty, with a few trees here and there. They got off their horses beneath a tree, leaving them tied to a low hanging branch as they themselves began to examine the area.

Mikael began to walk, already certain that the nearest place with any demonic presence to it at all had to be his own home over the river. His gaze swept the ground in front of him, not even seeing a trace of a campfire, or refuse pit - nothing one would expect to find.

He could hear Penson crunching along somewhere to his left. What was he expecting Mikael to find out here? Any mage could have told him whether there were demons out here, and being as they held the Defias back as best they could here Mikael would find it hard to believe that the People's Militia didn't have a single person in it with no magical talent whatsoever.

They walked around some more, in ever-widening circles, until the sun began to set. Mikael walked back to where they had tethered their mounts and leaned against the tree, feeling as though his throat was full of gravel - Westfall was a very dry place. Penson was heading back, Mikael could see him coming his way, so he merely crossed his arms and waited, closing his eyes against the red glare of the sun.

Finally Penson's footsteps sounded right in front of him and Mikael opened his eyes once more.

"I found nothing, sensed nothing. I don't understa-"

Penson's hand had been rising and Mikael, not realizing the significance of the gesture, took the cloud of white mist it released full in the face and dropped silently at the man's feet, deeply asleep. The appearance of Penson shimmered and fell away, revealing a man swathed entirely in white cloth with one arm stained the rusty brown of dried blood from fingertips to shoulder.

The true Penson would be found much later, stuffed between the floorboards of the ruined inn, his neck neatly snapped.

The white-clothed man bent and gently slung Mikael's arm over his shoulder, standing and easily lifting the unconscious human.

"You are a very valuable man to my master," he said, wrapping an arm around the warlock's waist to hold him upright as he released his grip on Mikael's arm over his shoulder. He quickly cast and opened a glittering portal. "Come, it is time to go home."

He stepped through, the portal closing behind them.

* * *

Saliea froze, straining to hear anything out of the ordinary. Fandral's gaze now slid to his right, his body tensed as though he meant to spring away at any second.

They came silently from the treetops, bands seemingly of solid shadow that struck both druids, slamming Saliea face-first into Fandral and trapping her there. Bands hit Staghelm throat, upper arms, elbows, wrists, hips, thighs, and knees, pinning Saliea to him by her neck, arms, waist and legs.

The momentum of the bands sent both druids crashing to the ground, Saliea the only one able to make any noise other than a gargled gasp. She snarled a spell and instantly the two were encased in a shell of thorny vines, and they could hear the impact of several more of the bands against it. Feeling Fandral's chest heaving under her, Saliea flexed to test the strength of the bonds - then gasped as they sliced into her arms, and had a moment of pure terror as she thought about the ones that had wrapped around Fandral's neck and her own.

'Surely someone will notice,' she thought desperately. It wasn't as though they were out of sight from anyone - any patrolling Sentinel would be able to easily see them.

The issue was whether they would get to them in time. She hadn't heard any further impacts on the shell surrounding them, but Fandral heaved below her and she quickly realized that the band must have hit his neck in the midst of an exhale - he was going to suffocate, and soon.

Suddenly she felt something cold and wet slither across her back, then felt similar things wrapping around her body and begin to tug together. _Down._

Archdruid and foster daughter disappeared together through the ground, their shell of protective vines shattering.


	3. Chapter 3

It first felt like they were falling a great distance, then they were yanked to the side and falling again. They landed hard enough Saliea feared for broken bones, but then the bands pinning them together shattered and Saliea rolled off Fandral and immediately bent over him protectively. Her gaze roamed their surroundings - they were laying between two stunted trees, on gray grass in a dim area. The sky she could see through the branches above them was the same steel gray as the grass, and she could see no immediate threats...that didn't mean there weren't any, but she could spare a moment to tend to her foster father.

The Archdruid inhaled noisily, deeply, wheezing and Saliea could see where he had cuts on his neck from the band. Her own forearms and legs, where she had tested the bands earlier, were cut and bleeding, and she was alarmed to see a black gel lining the injuries, both hers and Fandral's. She applied hands to them, and was alarmed again when the cuts only healed a fraction of what they should have.

She applied her hands again, this time whispering a spell meant to cleanse poison. The black gel faded, but before she had a chance to try healing Staghelm again he reached up and slapped her hands away.

"Where are we?" he gasped, struggling into a sitting position.

"I don't know," Saliea replied, cleansing her arm and leg wounds of poison. She once again reached to heal him and was once again fended off. "Hold still, you need healing-"

"What attacked us? Did you see anything?" Fandral went on hoarsely, still sucking in lungful after lungful of air and trying to massage the terrifying feeling of suffocation out of his chest.

"No, nothing."

Fandral went to stand and had to lean against the trees as a wave of dizziness hit him. Saliea stood up as well but also had to reach out to a trunk to catch herself. As she stood something fluttered from her lap to the ground.

Bending, she picked up a scrap of parchment, wondering where it could have possibly come from. There were a few words scrawled across it, written in Orcish -

_Keep your children safe._

_ - Kakum_

Her eyes widened as she took in the words, remembering the sensation of falling, then being yanked aside. And Kakum? How could a simple troll hunter be behind...

And her children...

"We've got to get back," she gasped, shaking her head to try and clear it while tucking the parchment into the collar of her shirt.

"Wait-"

Fandral lunged for her, nearly falling over himself, grabbing her upper arm and pulling her to him. She was about to complain at his grip, at how it hurt the recently injured flesh, but then her breath caught in her lungs.

Her wounds were oozing the black gel again, and she raised her gaze to see it once more lining the edges of the cuts decorating the Archdruid's neck. Fandral was panting, and this time it was he who cleansed the poison from the both of them.

"Come, let's find a clearing and find out where we are," he said, letting go of her and stumbling out from between the trees.

They quickly found a clearing, but neither could really tell where they were at.

"I cannot..." Fandral said wearily, closing his eyes and kneeling.

"Cannot concentrate," Saliea finished, swaying on her feet. "...A-An'da..." she suddenly squeaked.

Staghelm looked up, eyes widening when he saw that once again Saliea's wounds leaked black. He touched fingers to his neck and they came away dark with ooze and blood.

His inability to concentrate suddenly made sense.

He quickly cleansed his wound again then cleansed Saliea's, sick with worry. The only injuries he carried were the cuts on his neck; Saliea had cuts on her arms and legs, easily equating to four times as much poison as he carried, and she was easily half his size.

'Where are we? Think, think!'

Gray sky, gray grass, trees...Fandral greatly cursed the fog his mind was currently trapped in.

It wasn't until an owlbeast suddenly came charging at them that he focused enough to realize where they were: somewhere in Darkshore, the dark, dreary land off the coast of Teldrassil.

Saliea changed forms and leapt unsteadily at the moonkin, nearly missing her mark entirely but still clipping the beast enough so that it spun around before tripping and landing on the ground. From the druid's movements Fandral could tell his daughter was badly disoriented even as she tried to do battle with the screeching moonkin, and he squeezed his eyes shut and performed every exercise for clarity of mind he knew. He felt himself pierce the fog just a bit, just enough for him to quickly and expertly summon a single spell; the moonkin was simply seared from existence as the pearly white fire from the heavens struck it.

Saliea dropped to her stomach, swaying, moments before her panther form faded and revealed her in her elven form, stretched out on her stomach barely propped up on her elbows.

The Archdruid could feel the mental fog coming back and becoming worse. He once again performed the focusing exercises, clearing his mind as much as possible before once again attempting to cleanse the poison coating Saliea's wounds. She lay limply on the ground, causing a cold knot of fear to form in his stomach.

"Stay alert," he ordered, easily scooping up her light form and standing. "You must stay alert."

All he received in reply was a groggy mumble, causing the knot in his stomach to twist painfully. She was so light it wasn't any problem at all to carry her, curled up in his arms and clutched protectively to his chest, and as he walked he was thinking.

If he could clear his mind enough to fully cleanse his wounds of the poison then he'd be able to also cleanse Saliea...but what sort of poison was this? Would it kill her? Was it merely meant to disorient? He couldn't help her until he helped himself, but how much time did he have?

"Damn it," he finally snarled, dropping at the base of the nearest tree. Saliea lay still and silent in his lap, breathing shallowly, her eyes mere slits. Fandral closed his eyes and leaned back against the trunk, seeking within him his connection to nature; it was as though he was at the bottom of a very deep pool of water, looking up at the world. Everything shimmered, felt fuzzy and indistinct, including his connection to nature. The feeling of fear in his gut intensifying along with a dizzying, burning anger, Fandral took several deep breaths and began to fight his way through the fog.

* * *

The ground flashed by beneath pounding wolf paws as six wolves sped away at a dead sprint from an area approximately a mile outside of Orgrimmar. This area was a familiar one to Meraka - the mage had long since settled on it as a 'safe' point to teleport to should an emergency arise, and because of this she made sure it was manned by a group of guards she had personally selected. Along with the guards she had ordered that mounts be kept here too, and now she was thanking any deity that would listen that she had thought that far ahead. Ortok had laughed at her when she suggested such measures; her reasoning had been that someday enemies of the Warchief would move and attempt a coup, a fear that had deepened nearly to the point of paranoia when such a coup had happened in Undercity.

Now, however, now Ortok was the rider of one of the six wolves and he was no longer laughing.

Slumped forward on the wolf in front of him was Thrall, the mighty orc holding together a deep gash across his stomach, barely conscious. Ortok alone was all that kept the Warchief from toppling from the mount, and he kept glancing back behind him anxiously, making sure the other five wolves were keeping pace...and also making sure their pursuers were staying a fair distance back.

Four of the five riders were the guards who had kept the safe area manned and guarded. They rode in a protective formation around Ortok and Thrall, bristling with weaponry and barely concealed rage. The fifth rider was Meraka herself, and she was bringing up the rear admirably - every few minutes she would turn in the saddle and fire devastating magic behind them at the monsters that chased them, or sometimes she would place obstacles in their path to slow them down. Because of her efforts the _things_ that ran behind them were falling further and further behind.

The attack had been swift, sudden, and brutal. They had all been gathered in Thrall's throne room, discussing unsettling reports from Outland regarding massive arcane-based bombs and the possibilities of one such bombs being set off in Azeroth if the knowledge ever traveled through the portal. Meraka had just been rolling up scrolls littered with scrawlings of arcane equations and schematics when the room seemed to simply explode.

Centered on Thrall, suddenly there were thrashing limbs and a spray of blood. Three creatures had appeared in their midst, all rushing at the Warchief and the orc went under the attacking monsters.

Ortok, the Kor'kron, and Meraka had all immediately leapt to his defense, Ortok sweeping aside two of the three with one blow of his broadsword. Thrall was then able to get to his feet and battle back the one creature still on him with bone-shattering swings of his hammer.

The things attacking them were...not of this world. Their heads were those of snakes, with great gaping maws that could bite an orc in half - a grisly lesson learned evidenced by twitching legs gushing fluid onto the floor, all that was left of an unfortunate Kor'kron - and a crest of spines running from just above ridged brows to the middle of their backs. They were naked, but covered in scales more akin to that of a turtle's shell; the scales were palm-sized and overlapping, and bore the slick look of being freshly oiled.

Their bodies were humanoid though they hunched like a male troll, easily towering several feet over the orcs they grappled with. Each hand possessed four fingers and a thumb, and each digit, while thick, was lengthened by an additional six inches of obsidian talons. Identical talons sprouted from the five toes as well, and whenever one of the creature lunged it left great grooves in the floor, and likewise the talons were leaving deep scratches in the orcs' armor.

Meraka had a sudden moment of paralyzing realization: these creatures...these monsters...were very much like the monsters that had been attacking them years ago. The ones that had targeted the blood elf mage Tal'Thera.

Her sudden lapse in concentration had nearly killed her, as one of the massive monsters reared up in front of her and tore at her. It had been Thrall who stepped in front of her, the claws that would have taken her head instead grating down the Doomhammer, throwing sparks and nearly knocking both Warchief and mage to the floor. Thrall flexed, threw off the creature's blows, and raised his hammer to counter attack when the creature suddenly leapt off the floor and kicked out.

His hammer was too high to parry and Thrall took both taloned feet right in the gut, the talons slicing through his armor as though he wasn't even wearing any. Dropping to a knee in shock as he felt something uncoiling within him, Thrall had then given Meraka a clear line of sight at the beast, and the resulting fireball singed the Warchief's hair as it ripped by overhead and slammed into its intended target. Blood and gore painted the room as the serpent-monster was literally blown to bits, but Meraka was diving to the floor as Thrall slumped forward.

Ortok was suddenly there, his sword dipping then clattering to the floor as he went to lift their fallen Warchief. The room was deathly quiet now, the Kor'kron having managed to kill the other two though by the looks of things the elite guards had suffered heavy casualties.

"You fool," Meraka hissed as she helped Ortok gently lay Thrall on his back. "You should have let me pay for my own inattentiveness."

"T-they leap v-v-very high." He coughed and shakily raised a bloody hand before his eyes. "I-I wasn't expecting t-that." As they watched anxiously his hand began to glow and he applied it to his own wound, a deep cut that revealed raw muscle beneath the parted green flesh with the edges of the gash coated in a black fluid.

Meraka looked up at the Kor'kron. "Don't just stand there, fetch a healer! Fetch five! Go DO something!"

Two bowed and hurried from the room and Meraka turned her attention back to Thrall in time to see his pained expression take on a surprised overtone.

"What is it?"

"My wound..."

Thrall's fingers gently examined the gaping injury, grimacing at the self-inflicted pain but grimly gritting his teeth and probing at it. He could hear the spirits whispering in his ears - they had answered his request for healing magics the first time he had asked, and yet his wound had shown no change.

"Help me s-sit up," he ordered.

Ortok lifted Thrall until the Warchief was reclining against Ortok's raised knee. Sufficiently upright for the moment, Thrall peered down at his torn gut and wiped at the black ooze coating the edges of the tear.

"Poison?" he rumbled, rubbing his black-stained fingers together. He attempted to heal himself again, and once more there was no substantial visible change in the gash. "I cannot c-close it."

Ortok opened his mouth to respond, then the three of them froze as they heard a scrabbling sound behind them. Meraka, gazing over Ortok's shoulder, spied the briefest of rifts flash open then closed, and then four more of the same serpent-beasts appeared in the room.

"Put me on my feet, I will...I will fight to the...death," Thrall panted.

"No, you won't," Meraka snarled, standing with her hands, crackling with arcane magics, held out in front of her. Her first blast threw the creatures back into the far wall, and her next pinned them there under a combination of frost and arcane tendrils.

Before her eyes, however, they were pulling the tendrils loose and wriggling free.

"Time to go, I think," she growled.

Her hands moved rapidly, and within moments brilliant blue fire lined herself, Ortok, and Thrall, and they teleported away before the creatures could fully free themselves.

They'd then appeared in Meraka's safe camp, and had mounted the wolves they now fled on. The snake-creatures they'd left behind in the throne room had quickly found them, though, and were now pursuing them.

As they had run Thrall had been growing dizzy, exhausted...and by the looks of things it was not because of blood lost or shock from his wound. He had tried repeatedly to heal himself, to no effect, and the black gunk that coated his injury seemed to be leaking from it now.

Meraka's magic was slowing down the things chasing after them, but she alone could not handle the beasts by herself - the image of the half-eaten Kor'kron was still very fresh in her mind. She put two fingers to her mouth and whistled loudly; the guards riding with them turned to her expectantly, and she pointed back behind them.

"Ride back and slow them down as best you can - that does not mean engage them in combat," she growled. "Slow them down, give me enough time to get the Warchief out of here, then I want you to run. Do whatever you have to to get away alive."

They nodded and together turned in unison, rushing back with wild war cries toward the figures pursuing.

Ortok had slowed, then stopped and was waiting for her expectantly. Thrall swayed in front of him, barely conscious; Meraka leapt from her wolf before it even slowed down, hands working complicated gestures as she cast. Though it took several moments - and Meraka had to work hard to keep her mind on her casting and not look over her shoulder to see if the guards she'd sent off had done as they were told - she finally had a shimmering portal hovering in front of her.

"Where does it lead?" Ortok asked as his wolf mounted padded up alongside the mage.

"Thunderbluff, Cairne's tent to be specific," she replied in a rush, reaching up to lay hands on Thrall's thigh and close her eyes.

"...what are you doing?" Ortok asked, eyes narrowing.

"They want Thrall, I'll give them Thrall," Meraka murmured. Her hands flared a bright purple, then she stepped back and placed her hands on her face. From her head down, like she was putting on a different skin, a new image was replacing that of her own. Her large-breasted, red-haired build and robes disappeared, to be replaced with broad shoulders and black hair, and black plate armor-

"No!" Ortok snarled, leaning over and grasping at her. His hand went right through the illusion and grasped cloth robe where it should have been gripping black plate. "You fool! No wife of mine will-"

Meraka, now a perfect copy of Thrall, his gut wound even replicated in her illusion, slapped Ortok's hand away. "I don't intend to let them catch me," she said, even her voice a perfect imitation of the half-conscious Warchief. "Get him to Cairne, I will meet you there shortly." She reached into a pouch hanging from her belt and pulled out a sapphire suspended on a ribbon, giving the ribbon a quick snap. It went rigid and formed the shaft of her wand, the sapphire crackling with white lightning. Meraka waved her free hand over it and a passable illusion of the Doomhammer covered it.

"Go, now," she said, turning and striding toward her waiting wolf. "My illusions won't last long, and neither will the guards' distraction."

Ortok's face might as well have been carved from stone. "I can't leave you here."

"But you're going to," she responded. "Get the Warchief to safety, don't worry about me."

Something briefly passed over Ortok's face - resentment? Anger? - but then he was turning his back to her and kneeing his wolf toward the portal. When both Ortok and Thrall had disappeared through it she let it close and mounted her wolf.

Raising her 'Doomhammer' high, she let loose with the loudest war cry she could manage. She could see the guards look her way, salute her, then wheel their wolves around and ride toward her with the serpent-creatures right on their heels. Meraka smiled slightly, wondering if the guards would ever realize she was not their Warchief, but then the guards and the monsters that pursued them were nearly upon her and she had to kick her own mount into motion.

In her mind she saw over and over again Thrall stepping in front of her and taking what would have been a killing blow. She'd never forget that image.

* * *

The room he was in was dark except for two torches standing upright in the stone floor at his feet. He could barely see more than six feet in front of him and to the sides, when he strained to look that way.

Chains encircled his wrists and pulled his arms tight, above his head and to the sides, where the chains connected to twin stone pillars that stood at least ten feet tall each. Mikael had already checked their strength and knew he had no chance of bending the metal, and carved into each manacle attached to him was a glyph that, while it allowed magic to be cast ON him it prevented any magic cast BY him. He had awakened here, suspended by his wrists, only an hour ago; it was just him between the pillars surrounded in darkness.

He'd even, in a moment of panic, reached inside himself to seek the connection to his demon servants. That was gone too, and he had no way of knowing if that connection was blocked by the manacles or if somehow those connections had been severed.

First and foremost on his mind was Tal'Thera. If the bond between him and Jhuunom was gone then the felhound was free of Mikael's orders and could possibly attack the mage if he chose, and there was also the problem of the Defias. Just because that forward camp had been destroyed didn't mean that the trespassing would end either.

'I've got to get out of here, wherever HERE is,' he thought desperately, once again pulling at his chains.

Then, in the dark, he heard a noise, the scuff of a boot on the stone floor.

"Who's there? Show yourself!" he shouted.

Straining his ears, Mikael could hear that it wasn't just one person - he could hear the footsteps now of at least two people, possibly more.

"I said show yourself! Why have you captured me? Where am I?"

"Why, my beloved son, you are home."

The voice was cultured, female and had come from behind him, sending an icy chill down his back.

"What have those nasty naaru done to you?" the voice went on, followed by a clucking tongue.

Mikael froze as he felt the gentle caress of fingertips on his lower back.

"My poor poor child, so damaged by the Light and by those nasty, nasty naaru. But don't worry, I'll fix your pain. I'll fix you."

Then, agony unlike any he'd ever felt blossomed from his spine and spread across his back. He went slack in his chains, too agonized to even scream.

* * *

She could feel it, feel the spellwork the naaru had burned into him in an effort to suppress what they believed was an unfortunate twist of fate. If only they knew.

The experiment had been a success, she knew. She could, even with the naaru's meddling, feel the power burning within the human like one would feel heat from a flame.

"My lovely one," she sighed, clenching her fist and ripping it sideways through the air. The warlock gave one last spasm and then went unconscious, and there was a brief explosion of colored light as she effortlessly tore the spellwork from his back.

Instantly she was assaulted with the sense of power - she even stepped back a bit, feeling as though she would stagger and fall beneath the weight of the sensation - and smiled, turning to face the man who stood behind her.

"Do you feel it?"

The man clothed in white, all of him hidden except for his eyes, nodded slowly. "He is powerful indeed, but is he powerful enough?"

She ducked under one of the warlock's arms and stood in front of him, reaching up to stroke his face tenderly. "Of course. Through him, I have access to all the magics present in this world. He is the vessel, the conduit. He is precious..." Her hand trailed up his jawline to his hair, smoothing it back a moment before she brushed a kiss across Mikael's sweaty forehead.

"His years on his own nearly killed him as the power grew faster than he could rightfully handle. He is near to where I need him to be...I shall gently push him to that final place, now that he is within my protective grasp."

"Why did you not do that from the beginning?" the man asked softly.

She smiled at him. "When one works in a garden, one can water, feed, fertilize, weed, and tend all one likes...but the garden must be given time on its own to truly grow. Too much interference can actually stunt growth and potential." She again stroked the warlock's face. "I have given him his time, and now it is mine."

The man in white came forward and retrieved the torches, holding them both easily in one hand as he stood at the side of his master. She patted his shoulder, then waved her hand with a palm parallel to the floor.

The stone beneath their feet shimmered and disappeared, as did the pillars and the chains, leaving the three levitating over something entirely new.

A wide pool stretched beneath their feet, twenty feet across and unnaturally, perfectly round. They could see their reflections for a fraction of a moment before the surface of the pool burst into motion. What had appeared as water before suddenly came alive, frothing and rippled as though a mighty wind stirred the surface. Not a drop of the liquid within ever left the pool, however, and this pool was not filled with water.

The frothing 'water' was vividly purple and shot through with stray bolts of arcane lightning that tore through the depths of the pool, revealing the bottom to be perhaps six feet down. The bottom below was flat, the pool a perfect cylinder, and engraved into the bottom were so many glyphs of so many different types of magic that the bottom seemed to glow in a myriad of colors that changed with every blink of the eye.

Something stirred on the bottom, and whip-like dark shapes arched up for them. When they exploded out of the water and spun through the air, one could see they were heavy chains; they came forward, twisting in on themselves like live snakes before snapping around the suspended warlock at wrists, waist, ankles, and neck. Once secured, they dragged the human from the air and down into the roiling purple liquid, pulling until he lay flat against the runed bottom on his back.

She watched, shaking her head and sighing sadly. "His pain is my pain, such is the fate of a hopeful parent."

"He will not drown down there?"

"Of course not. He will sleep, heal, and further absorb that which he needs to grow."

Her servant behind her stared down silently, then shook himself and reached into his white wrappings. "I nearly forgot. I retrieved the stolen crystal."

He held it out to her but she held up a hand to stop him. "I do not want the crystal, it is no longer necessary," she scolded.

He nodded. "I shall dispose of it, then."

"Do that. Is my little Leah sleeping?"

"She is."

"Such a darling child."

The man in white watched his master levitate to the edge of the stormy pool then disappear from sight. He then also levitated himself to the side of the pool, kneeling down and peering into it once more. The still form of the warlock could just barely be seen through the thrashing liquid, chained to the bottom, and as the man watched he could see the runes immediately surrounding his body periodically grow dimmer for a brief instant before returning to their normal luminosity.

He turned his gaze from the warlock and instead focused on the crystal in his hand.

That the crystal had been separated from the host was a strange idea to him, and he wondered how it had been done...and further wondered if it had anything to do with the attack ordered on certain members of the Horde and Alliance, attacks meant to be deterrents and nothing more. But what were they deterring from? He wished he knew what his master was thinking, but then again it was not his job to think, only to do what he was told.

He set the torches to the side, pinched the crystal between forefinger and thumb and lowered it, barely touching the very tip to the pool's surface.

The pool reacted and went deathly still, and the crystal took on a violet hue moments before it went dead too. The man waited patiently as the pool scryed for him, then leaned back as the liquid surged upward in an amorphous blob that hung in the air motionlessly for several moments. Finally it began to lengthen, to shift and twist itself into a shape vaguely humanoid.

Several minutes later a perfect - if somewhat less than opaque - replica of a blood elf hovered in midair. As he watched it turned, mimicked the movements of the living being it projected - the elf was walking, talking, and now kneeling to point at something on the ground. He was dressed in robes, had short hair that spiked up from his skull, and as the man in white watched the elf reached up a hand to push a pair of goggles off his eyes and onto his forehead, then bent to examine whatever object it was he was pointing to.

The man in white studied him closely, noting every detail so that he would recognize the elf when he saw him.

Then, he asked a simple question of the pool.

"Where?"

The image of the blood elf collapsed and the liquid churned in on itself, again pushing itself up into the air and forming a shape. This time it was no elf it depicted but a map of Kalimdor and after a moment it burst out into another shape, giving the man in white the sensation of having been zoomed in at a dizzying speed.

But he nodded when he saw where he was being directed to.

Mulgore was empty enough that it should be no problem to find a single blood elf in the company of tauren. He again thought it was strange that this crystal should be ejected from its host, rather than the blood elf turning into one of the snake-creatures...

He would be keeping an eye on this blood elf, that was certain.

* * *

"This one then?" Ki'tryn, also known as Pit, asked, bending over low to point at a bundle of dried herbs sitting on a workbench.

The blood elf was currently inside a circular tent, the wooden poles covered in decorated animal hides with colorful depictions of sunsets, trees, and prairie grasses. The inside of the tent was carpeted with soft green grass covered with mats woven out of river reeds and fur rugs, and lining the 'walls' of the tent were low workbenches covered in bottles, bundles, pestles, bowls, and beakers.

Pit was pointing at a clump of brilliant purple grasses held together with a rough twine, and the tent's only other occupant looked up from where she sat and then chuckled softly.

"No, but you are close. It is very hard to tell silverleaf apart from dried mountain sage sometimes, especially in this dim tent."

Pit pushed his goggles up onto his forehead then leaned over to push his face right next to the leaves, inhaling deeply even as he squinted at them. "But it smells correct. Are you sure this isn't it?"

Whisper chuckled again and motioned to the table directly to the elf's left. "It is there, I know because I placed it there yesterday myself."

Grumbling good-naturedly, Pit turned and found the correct bundle of partially dried purple herbs and brought them over to the sitting tauren who accepted them gratefully and began to shred the limp leaves into the bowl in front of her.

"I still don't know why you're making this," Pit began, flopping to the ground beside her as the smell of bruised greenery filled the air. "It's for a poultice, isn't it? But no one's injured, and those things don't last all that long right?"

Whisper smiled, and Pit could see with surprise that it was sad one. "We will need it."

"How do you know?"

She simply shook her head. "We will need it," she repeated grimly.

Pit opened his mouth to question further, but suddenly outside the tent there was a great shouting - as great as he'd ever heard from tauren, which compared to the noise excited blood elven guards could make wasn't much at all - and then he heard the thundering of running feet. Confused, he scrambled to his feet and poked his head outside the tent, pausing only to shove his goggles back over his eyes, then looked around.

Tauren of all sorts - guards, citizens, druids and shaman - were running through the streets of Thunder Bluff, all heading for the great dwelling their leader Cairne Bloodhoof lived in and led from. Pit reached out and grabbed the arm of a passing male and was nearly dragged from the tent as the much-larger tauren had to slow his momentum at the blood elf's touch.

"What's going on?" Pit asked, all but hanging off the tauren's arm.

The tauren, armed with a poleaxe, pointed the tip of his weapon toward Cairne's dwelling. "Warchief Thrall has appeared within our midst, perhaps mortally wounded!"

Instantly the blood elf felt his heart plunge to his feet and his stomach turn to ice. "What?!"

"And with him came a strange creature that attacked our leader. It was defeated easily, crushed beneath Cairne Bloodhoof's might, but it no doubt was meant to finish the Warchief off," the tauren continued. "We go to further guard our leader and our Warchief."

As the male pulled from him and ran off, Pit stood in stunned silence. What could be so bold, so _stupid_, that it would attack Thrall? And, worse yet, what could be so strong as to actually injure the mighty orc?

He jumped when he felt a gentle touch on his sleeve, and turned to see Whisper standing beside him with her bowl full of herbs, all crushed to a slick paste.

"Come, Ki'tryn," she said softly. "I did tell you we would need this."

* * *

Cairne knelt over the unconscious Thrall, listening intently as the orc that had arrive with the Warchief, a male named Ortok, spoke quickly on what had happened.

"These creatures then, appeared from nowhere?" the tauren chief asked when Ortok paused for breath.

"They did," Ortok said bluntly. "They attacked without warning and without mercy."

Cairne and Ortok moved aside as healers arrived and clustered around the fallen Warchief. Ortok, now that he wasn't speaking, stared blankly at the floor between his boots, brow furrowed. Cairne studied the younger orc, all the while replaying what had just happened in his mind.

He had been sitting in meditation when a portal had appeared from nowhere and literally dumped Thrall and Ortok nearly into his lap. Seconds later, before Ortok could even gasp an explanation, something had struck from behind the elder tauren; had it not been for Ortok's eyes suddenly going wide, the tauren chieftain likely would not have even known danger lurked at his back.

But the warning in the eyes of the orc caused Cairne to turn, and in doing so he almost completely dodged the attack coming from behind, suffering only a shallow scratch on one shoulder as his assailant soared by him, to be cleaved in half by Ortok's sword.

Cairne turned his attention to the rotting remains - and they were rotting, decaying at an alarming rate right before their eyes and leaving behind a slick of foul slime - of the thing that had attempted to either attack Cairne or Thrall. He only had gotten a brief look at the thing as it leapt at him, but it was a bizarre creature. Covered in dark scales appearing slick with oil, a wide mouth full of teeth, talons on fingers and toes, it was unlike anything Cairne had ever seen.

But not unlike things he had heard of.

"Set a heavy guard," Cairne ordered then, only just now realizing how many had rushed to his dwelling, ready to defend their leaders. "See that no one but healers, myself, and this orc here enter."

Ortok looked up, alarm on his face. "Only us?"

"Should I be expecting more to appear from the air itself?"

"Yes. My mate, Meraka, and some guards," Ortok replied in a rush. "If I know her she will teleport herself directly to the Warchief's side."

"I have heard of this female," Cairne said with a smile. "Her loyalty to her Warchief is said to be unmatched."

Something flickered across the orc's face - Anger? Jealously? Sorrow? - then was just as quickly replaced with the hard-set look of determination. "She will come."

Cairne nodded and amended his orders then had Ortok sent away to rest and eat while the tauren settled down to watch over the healers as they worked over the Warchief, only allowing the scratch on his arm to be smeared with salve and then simply bandaged.

"Save your strength for he who needs it," he said, scratching at the edges of the bandage, eyes never leaving Thrall.


	4. Chapter 4

Whisper's poultice soothed Thrall's wound, and drew out the disgusting ooze...but while Thrall's blood ceased flowing, the ooze did not. For several hours priests, blood knights, druids, shaman, all stood working over the Warchief, and while finally the color began to return to the orc's face, still that nasty black gunk bled from the injury that simply refused to heal.

Through the healer's work Thrall still remained unconscious even as his color improved and his breathing deepened - to all the world it looked as though he was merely deeply asleep.

What afflicted the Warchief was a mystery to all...

And even worse still was the fact that the tiny scratch on Cairne's arm, one hardly deep enough to even have drawn blood, was also leaking black fluid.

* * *

Just as suddenly as she had disappeared, she reappeared behind him. He gave no indication of surprise, merely bowed deeply to her as the liquid map behind him sank back into the churning pool.

"I have decided. It is time to stroll through my garden."

He nodded at her words, knowing exactly what she meant by them. "I shall mobilize the troops immediately."

"Open the gates and allow my army to spill forth."

He nodded and, after pocketing the crystal, bowed deeply and then disappeared.

* * *

She had gone from a pleasant visit with her father-in-law to being escorted with all haste to the city of Stormwind, the knights escorting her pausing only long enough to give her a cloak with a hood with which to somewhat hide her appearance. By now the citizens of Stormwind knew of her but she still made sure to do what she could to lessen the shock of her appearance to the humans - truthfully it was only because of James, Mikael's father, that most tolerated her presence at all, at least within the city walls as there were always the few who timidly approached her doorstep with requests of her.

So, swathed in a cloak that smelled faintly of a horse stall and with Jhuunom trailing along at her heels, Tal'Thera did what she could to avoid bumping into people as she followed the two knights sent to her. They hadn't told her a thing about where they were going, or why, and while it made her wary she didn't feel she was in any danger though she still would have liked some information about why she'd been brought into the city.

Finally she was tugging off the cloak and handing it back to the knight that had handed it to her, swallowing nervously as she looked up the slope of the grand hallway that led into the throneroom of Stormwind.

Why was she being brought before the king?!

Her escorts now stepped to the side, gesturing for her to continue on her own. She inhaled, motioned for Jhuunom to follow, then began to walk up the hallway, trying not to look at the guards lining the walls to either side.

When she entered the throne room she was first shocked to see an obvious absence of guards. The second shock came not when she noticed that, counting herself, there were only four people in the room. Instead, she was shocked to realize she recognized the others brought before Varian Wrynn.

"Logane? Meriwend?" she squeaked, feeling quite weak in the knees.

The two guards bowed their heads briefly in her direction, both wearing faint smiles. Meriwend was wearing a gown that showed every curve to her body, and Tal'Thera was actually shocked to see the female wearing such attire - after all, she'd only ever seen the woman in the armor of a ranger guard. Logane, at Meriwend's side, was wearing his usual mail and leather armor, though he had a half-cape over his right shoulder that hid where his arm ended just above where an elbow should have been.

Varian Wrynn sat upon his throne on a raised area above them all; Tal'Thera had always liked the look of that throne, as she thought the lions supporting it on either side looked rather regal, but today she couldn't bring herself to look at anything beyond the two blood elves standing before Wrynn.

Varian nodded to Tal'Thera, gestured for her to approach. "Friends of yours?"

"They were my guardians in Silvermoon," Tal'Thera stuttered after a moment. She hurried forward and gave the king a formal curtsy, which he acknowledged with a nod before turning to the other two.

"They have come bearing rather odd news," he began, and Tal'Thera could tell from his tone that he was either really mad, or really puzzled. "Perhaps you can explain again why you approached me, and again explain why I should bother myself with your request."

Meriwend clasped her hands in front of her, inhaling deeply. "Word has traveled through the network of agents we possess. Thrall and Cairne, only hours ago, were attacked by mysterious creatures...or not so mysterious, as we are well-informed on what they are, even if we have no name for them."

"And explain the significance of such a statement," Varian said dryly.

"They are the very same creatures as the ones that had attempted to kidnap our lady," Meriwend went on after a pause.

"No," Tal'Thera said, surprising even herself. "I mean...that's not possible," she went on, stuttering slightly. "We destroyed what was creating them, and the remaining creatures perished." At the looks from the blood elves and the human king, her face flushed a bright red. "We DID. I know we did."

"No one doubts you, my lady," Logane spoke up after a moment. "However, the issue of the destruction is a pointless topic to pursue, as we have confirmed these are indeed the same monsters...we fear they may target you again, and we have been sent to warn the humans and take you to safety back within our own lands."

Even before he had finished Tal'Thera was shaking her head. "I cannot...I WILL not, go back with you. My place is here, with my husband, and -" she paused, looking up at Varian, "-I have pledged my loyalty to the Alliance. I no longer belong with the Horde."

Varian's face remained expressionless, and Tal'Thera didn't miss the winces that crossed the faces of her two once-guardians, but nonetheless Meriwend took a few steps toward her and extended her hand.

"The Regent Lord still holds high hopes that you will have some sense and come back," she said softly. "Alliance, Horde, it doesn't matter which side you claim to be on, he will want you kept safe so you can help those of our people who still need you."

Tal'Thera again shook her head. "I'm sorry, but my place is here now. I will not leave my home and my husband."

Meriwend's hand didn't falter, and perhaps she meant to say more, but at that moment a noise in the hallway leading to the throne room caught everyone's attention.

It wasn't a loud noise but neither was it subtle, and it was peculiar at best - a sort of slithering noise, like stiffened cloth on a stone floor followed by what could have been footsteps. The four in the room looked up in time to see - with varying degrees of alarm - that the hallway had darkened, or not so much darkened but had become dim and foggy. Just within clear sight in the doorway leading to the hall, the guards on either side of the entranceway slumped down the wall to the floor, accompanied by the same cloth-upon-stone sound.

Varian was halfway off his throne when a solitary figure emerged from the fog.

It was a female human...and yet not. Her skin had a faint purple tinge to it, especially in the hollows of her cheeks and throat, and she certainly had the build of a typical human. However, her ears were pointed slightly, like a half elf's, and she had two small pointed nubs on her forehead as though she'd tried growing a pair of horns and had decided early on it just wasn't worth the effort. Her hair was long, glossy, and was such a deep purple it nearly appeared black in the light of the room, appearing even darker against the lavender gown of a simple cut the female wore that brushed the floor and hid her feet.

"Who are you?" Varian snapped, hand going for his sword that was never far from hand.

He didn't make it much further than a twitch before the female waved her hand and an invisible force roughly flung him back into his throne, where he struggled against what held him down as the female approached.

Meriwend and Logane both immediately placed themselves between the intruder and Tal'Thera - which also placed them between the intruder and the king of Stormwind - and Logane suddenly had a rapier in his remaining hand and had it leveled at the female's chest.

The woman look highly amused at this, then seemed to stare beyond the blood elves and fixed her gaze on Varian.

"Varian Wrynn," she said, her voice light and airy.

"Guards!" Varian shouted, momentarily forgetting that all his guards were currently unconscious - or worse.

The female laughed then. "Oh, no. This is a conversation that will not take long." She curtsied deeply, then straightened back up, smiling brightly. "I have come to make a simple request of you, human king. You will surrender control of your people to me, and convince the others of your pathetic Alliance to do the same."

Varian struggled against the force holding him against his throne; it was beginning to constrict, slowly squeeze in upon him, and while his gear was providing a shell against the pressure if it continued to mount he'd be crushed by his own armor. Down on the floor below him, Tal'Thera carefully crooked a finger in his direction and he instantly felt the pressure lessen.

The intruding female's gaze moved from the king to the mage then. "Do not play with forces beyond your reckoning, little elf," she snarled coldly. For a moment Tal'Thera was completely taken aback - the voice that had just out of that woman was one that seemed to belong to an entirely different person. Surprised, the blood elf mage didn't notice that the female's gaze once more left her and returned to Varian.

"What say you, king?" she asked, her voice once more airy and almost bubbling.

"I say you're insane," came the reply - gasped, as the pressure returned ten times worse.

This time Tal'Thera turned around, making no effort to hide her intention, and she gestured sharply with both hands. The magic ensnaring Varian dissipated, and the king was instantly on his feet with weapon drawn.

The female looked mildly startled, but recovered quickly and raised her hands with a whisper. Tal'There would, years from now, still be amazed at her own bravery; the mage stepped forward in front of everyone and thrust her hands toward the ceiling. A sparkling shield of brilliant arcane energy arched up and over herself, the two blood elves, and her king, mere moments before a rippling wave of sheer force struck them all.

She cried out as her shield wavered, but she held it as the wave roared by on either side and smashed into the stonework of the walls, sending rock fragments skittering across the floor. Logane was suddenly rushing forward, bursting through Tal'Thera's shield and slashing with his slender rapier.

The woman seemed surprised, narrowly sidestepped and then was surprised again as the one-armed blood elf landed lightly, pivoted on his foot, and completely reversed the swing of the rapier rapidly, slicing a cut so shallowly but neatly on the intruder's arm that for several seconds it would not even bleed.

Having recovered from nearly being crushed, Varian Wrynn looked ready to join the fray, but before he or anyone else could move further, something else beat them to it.

Time had seemed to slow down in the room at that moment: Tal'Thera held the protective shield, Meriwend - though the mage could not see it - was preparing to grab Tal'Thera and make a run for it; Varian was stepping forward with his marvelous sword at the ready; and Logane was twisting his wrist and spinning the tip of his blade in toward the woman's midsection, grim with determination and with the knowledge that he would very likely die here as he saw power gathering in the palms of his opponent.

All of these things happened simultaneously, seemingly over an eternity. Whatever spell the woman in lavender had been preparing to unleash never came, however.

Her head jerked to one side, her spell lost as a look of utter shock came over her features. Just over her forehead one could barely make out the tops of a pair of knuckles and suddenly the female's jerking made sense. A hand held her by the hair, swung her around and disrupted her spellcasting, and then there was a second hand arching in from the side with a long-bladed dagger clutched in it. The blade slammed into the woman's hip, withdrew, and came in again - Tal'Thera's mind caught up with what was happening in time to understand that the female was struggling, and that the blow to the hip was a result of the hand wielding the blade having missed its original mark.

The female slammed a glowing palm behind her, sent the pair of hands and the blade tumbling away. Now, no longer hidden behind the woman, one could clearly see the figure that had attacked her.

Tall, somewhere between muscular and lean, and clad in black and dark brown leather armor studded with blackened iron. A hood and face mask completely hide the identity of its wearer, a twin blade to the one clutched in the figure's hand hung in its sheath upon the person's belt, and a bandolier of tiny throwing knives hung from left shoulder to right hip.

The tumbling leather-clad attacker landed against the wall and used it as a springboard, nimbly and quickly leaping from it and drawing the second blade as he came. Both were flashing in his hands when the female stepped back and - much to the surprise of everyone, even her attacker - lunged out and caught the figure by the throat, holding him - her? - suspended off the ground, laughing as both weapons clattered to the floor at her feet.

Hip pouring blood down her leg, the woman in lavender easily held her attacker up above her head, seemingly unfazed by the few rough kicks but nonetheless lowered her trapped assailant down to where they would be eye to eye. She tightened her grip, drawing a gasping wheeze from her victim, ignoring as the person's feet kicked and scraped at the floor, grazing the daggers and kicking at her shins.

"Die," she said simply.

Her arm had just begun to flex, to crush the windpipe, when a searing pain erupted in her gut. She looked down in disbelief, the scene not quite making sense to her:

Her assailant had curled in on himself, bringing his feet into her gut. Clutched between the toes of his boots one could see the hilt of a knife, and slightly beyond that one could see the few inches of the blade that wasn't buried in her stomach. The wild flailing hadn't been wild at all, this person had purposely been trying to get a hold on one of his dropped weapons, and having done that...

She threw him away, ripping the offending blade free and turning to see that Logane and Varian had recovered, and were now coming after her as well.

Both the males paused then...utterly uncomprehending the look the female gave them all.

Her eyes watered, her _chin trembled, _and she began to cry like a small child seconds before she disappeared from the room.

"_That was very mean! I hope you all die!"_

The absurdness of the situation held them all stationary, except for the hooded figure picking himself - herself? - up off the floor groggily, untangling himself from the jumble of limbs he'd landed in when he'd landed on one of the collapsed guards.

Finally, Meriwend broke the silence by rushing forward and seizing Tal'Thera's arm.

"My lady, you are unharmed?"

Tal'Thera let the shield drop and realized her hands were shaking violently. "I'm fine, I-" she looked over her shoulder to Varian, saw that the king was staring blankly at the floor where a small scattering of blood droplets was all that marked where the intruding female had been mere moments before. "-my King, are you-?"

"I despise not understanding something," Varian said quietly, slowly. "And I do not understand what just happened here."

Logane stepped over to help their unexpected savior up from the floor and was roughly swatted away. This seemed to snap Varian out of it and the king turned his attention to yet another intruder inside his throne room. With weapon leveled at the hooded humanoid he stalked forward, pausing only to drop to one knee and check on one of his fallen guards.

No pulse. Dead, then...most likely all of them dead.

"Who are you?"

The hooded figure stood, holding its head and reaching out a hand to steady himself. "Time for that later, it's not you I came for."

The voice was definitely male, was muffled behind his mask and seemed very unused to speaking Common, but there was no mistaking the voice for Tal'Thera. She felt Meriwend's arms encircling her as she nearly collapsed herself, eyes on the man as he reached up and pulled his mask and hood from his face.

Dark grey hair was coiled in a tight ponytail on top of his skull, and a goatee adorned his lined face. He reached up to massage the tips of his ears with a grimace.

"_Daughter, you and I need to have a little talk about your current life choices," _Malchoir said with a heavy sigh.

* * *

All across Azeroth, evil was on the move. Even those of the same ilk could feel the change, and most had the sense to hunker down in their various lairs and holes...to wait and see what part, what role they were expected to play in it. This was no mere cultist movement, and it wasn't the power of the Old Gods or the Legion, this was nothing no one had ever felt or sensed and it rippled across the face of the world like a breeze before a violent storm.

And that's what it was.

He had purposely left this singular gate as his last one to put into place, as it was nearby where the blood elf he hunted dwelled. The man in white understood the need for speed in this task, but had to constantly remind himself not to rush or the spellwork placed into the gateway would fail.

A broad stretch of runework lay burnt into the ground and filled the break between the hilly, mountainous border of Mulgore. When the gate was active - and it would be in mere moments - no living thing would be able to go into or out of Mulgore save for magic or flight, both equally dangerous with the instability the gate lent to common arcane magic.

On the far side of the gate, the Mulgore side, the lieutenant waited. The man's master called them hssriii'rhak, but whether that was her name for them or their actual name he didn't know.

The hssriii'rhak stood eight feet tall or so, was heavily muscled and clad in leathery robes marked with wild patterns of runes that shifted colors so frequently it gave one a headache to look at them. Its hands and feet were taloned like raptors, but it possessed the dexterity of human digits coupled with the brute strength of a common beast. He knew it was a formidable spellcaster, though the _how _eluded him: the hssriii'rhak's face was that of a snake, with a wide mouth that had seemingly free-flowing flesh for lips that pulled back or came forward depending on the width the hssrii'rhak required. The man had seen the beast speak, and had also seen that mouth open impossibly wide, wide enough to have bitten the man's head off, and then moments later had seen that oddly liquid flesh close back over the jaws to form a mostly humanoid mouth.

The creatures seemed to come in several varieties much like any other species, but he knew that his master specifically bred certain ones. There were the mindless drone warriors, the hunters, and the ones that he mentally called the lieutenants - by far the biggest and most intelligent of them all, and also the most violent and dangerous.

It waited patiently on him, and the man knew he didn't need to complete this gateway - he hadn't needed to complete any of the gateways, merely lay the foundation for the spellwork and then allow the lieutenants to finish it. Why he wished to finish it himself wasn't a mystery, and he knew if he dawdled too long his actions may come under the attention of his master, something he could not allow to happen no matter what.

He was just opening his mouth to issue the order to finish, when a niggling at the back of his mind reached him. As always, the tiny presence made him smile, and he caught the eye of the hssriii'rhak.

The beast nodded and the man in white felt a surge of power as it began to weave itself into the spell matrix and throw its power behind opening the gate. As the energy mounted, he could feel the other gates he'd placed across Azeroth and in his mind's eye he could even see them as a sort of network overlay of powerful lines and pulsing center cores.

Quite a bit of effort in distracting the world from the one core of power that was the key to everything.

His gateway task completed, he spoke the words that would return him home. The bright sunlight of the surface world gave way to the dimly lit pool chamber with its softly pulsing purple liquid.

At the pool's edge was a tiny figure, bent over and staring down into the stormy depths, a small child that turned around and smiled brightly at him as he approached.

"How long was I asleep this time, Papa?"

The man in white scooped up the child, a girl with curly black hair and blue eyes sunk into a pale face. "About a week, Leah. What are you doing out of bed?" He let her squirm from his grasp and clamber her way up his body to perch on his shoulders, pausing to let her settled before walking back to the pool's edge.

"I felt Mam. Is that a brother for me?" she asked, pointing down at the human chained to the bottom of the pool. Her little face beamed at the thought of having a real live big brother to play with!

The man chuckled. "Possibly."

"Does he have to sleep as much as I do?"

"Yes."

"Isn't it uncomfortable down there?"

"I don't know. I imagine it may be."

She slid down his back and scampered to the edge to sit and let her bare feet dangle into the frothy violet liquid. "I think it is. I wouldn't want to sleep with that light down there flashing."

He knelt beside her and peered down at the warlock. Nothing had changed it seemed: the colored runes still pulsed around him, the chains still encircled him and still the human slept. "What flashing light? The runes?"

"No, the light. It's gold like a sunbeam and flashes. It makes me think it's mad at me," she added thoughtfully. She pointed with one tiny finger down at the warlock. "See? It's in his chest. Is it? Is it mad at me?"

The man chuckled and hugged her to his side. "Of course not, what could ever get mad at you? But I don't see a light, sadly."

"I do. It's flashing right now. Are you sure it's not mad at me?" she asked again, looking up at him.

He hugged her again. "I'm certain. What can you tell me about this light?"

"It's gold and flashes. It was really bright earlier. It won't stay bright for long though."

"What makes you say that?"

"I don't know."

He studied the warlock a moment, still seeing nothing, but he held an eerie understanding of what the child was trying to tell him. "Do you think the light will ever go out?"

"It will. Oh, I know, it's kind of like a candle! Like the candle in my room. It'll burn, and then when it's too short I can't read by it anymore," she added, pouting somewhat.

He chuckled again. "I'll get you another candle. How long do you think before the light goes out?"

She held her hands out in front of her, wiggling her fingers with her face scrunched up in concentration. After several moments of lifting and lowering fingers, she finally turned to him with all the fingers on one hand up, and all but the thumb of the other hand up.

"Nine days?"

She nodded fervently, kicking her feet into the pool.

The man in white tucked her under his arm and then stood. "Well then, I have nine days." She squealed as he spun her around and then up onto his back, looping arms under her legs to hold her in place. "Let's go and find you another candle, so you are not reading in the dark."

"Papa, can I play with him when he wakes up?"

"We'll see."

* * *

He had thought it would take a long time to fly from Stonetalon back to Teldrassil, but so far the journey had been rather swift. Being able to ride above the world and take a direct path to his destination - plus the wind that had been steadily pushing at his back - had taken so much time off his travels that Darae wondered why more druids didn't seek flight.

_Primarily because most are more concerned with things of man, and not of nature._

As usual, the voice of the one traveling with him came to his mind instantly, as though the male had sensed Darae's thoughts and were responding to them without the novice druid needing to voice them.

The huge, antlered druid Felunian flew alongside Darae, the young boy being dwarfed by the much-larger avian form of the elder male. Darae had studied with the male for a week before taking the terrifying plunge off the edge of the nest and being rewarded with the ability to soar safely up into the heavens under his own power. With the knowledge he had sought now his, the next day after his first successful flight Darae had bid the elder goodbye and had ultimately been surprised when the druid declared he would accompany him back to Darnassus.

_Most of the druids I thought sought ways to keep the balance? _Darae thought back at his escort.

_Yes. The balance is sought by all druids. The problem lies in the fact that druids of today are so overwhelmed with seeking the balance...they fail to see the forest because they are so busy looking at each individual trees. Nature has a way of correcting itself, and young druids are often concerned with seeking immediate results when the true, natural way is to allow nature a chance to sort herself out before we mortals interfere._

Darae mulled on that a moment. He didn't know many druids beyond his shan'do and the other novices he'd been momentarily grouped with before being assigned to Saliea, so he had no true grasp on how druids actually functioned in their role outside of Teldrassil. _So the best way to help nature is to leave it alone then?_

He heard Felunian chuckle. _Sometimes. Sometimes not._

_ How do you know when to help, and when not to?_

_ That, is the true mark of wisdom. A druid should be able to assess a situation, and determine that on their own._

Darae tried not to sigh heavily. _Then how can you be mad if someone uses their own judgment and messes up?_

_ I never grow angry at a mistake, youngling. I only grow angry when one refuses to learn from them._

_ So how then are druids more concerned with man things instead of nature?_

_ Because they seek what amounts to a quick fix which ultimately bends nature to their will. We are nurturers, not gardeners. Like man, many druids make the same mistake over and over in their ignorance._

Feeling quite out of his element in this conversation, Darae fell silent and pondered how the Archdruid would like to be told he was an idiot making the same mistakes over and over. He could mentally picture the intimidating male puffing up like a bullfrog about to explode and the thought was amusing and terrifying, because Darae knew the Archdruid was the sort who WOULD explode, only it would be verbally - which would be less messy but just as frightening.

Without warning Felunian dipped a wing and shot to the side, then shut his wings and plummeted. Darae pulled up and fluttered in place, watching as the elder druid zipped toward the ground far below, and was surprised to see that they were already over Darkshore. He squinted against a gust of wind that nearly blew him head over tail feathers, then he peered down to see Felunian pull up and glide down between the crowns of some trees.

There was something down there, Darae thought. He swore he could see a tangle of legs against the tree's base - a sudden thought that Felunian had seen corpses turned his stomach, as Darae was painfully aware of how much more beast than night elf Felunian seemed to be, and he also knew storm crows were known to feed on carrion.

But no, down below Felunian didn't feed upon bodies, but instead changed into his elf form and bent over them. Darae flew down, far less gracefully than Felunian had, and he was halfway into a landing when he saw who Felunian bent over.

Startling a druid halfway through a shapeshift is never a good thing - it can be painful for all parties involved, depending on the situation. As such, Darae had been in the midst of changing his forms even as he swooped down to land, and upon seeing the two night elves at the base of the tree he momentarily forgot what he was doing. His halfway-changed body snapped back to his storm crow form and he hit the ground and skidded, flapping awkwardly to right himself as he slid along on his chin and belly.

Felunian was too busy checking for pulses on the two elves he had spotted from the air - one, a massive green-haired male, and the other a diminutive female with green hair of a different shade.

Darae managed to right himself and change back to his elven form, then scrambled on all fours over to them, hardly breathing.

"S-shan'do? Mom?"

Felunian looked at him sharply. "You know them?"

"This is my mother, and this is...this is the Archdruid," Darae gasped. He reached out a trembling toward them only to have Felunian slap it away.

"Do not touch them if you can help it. They are infected with an unknown substance beyond my knowledge of healing."

"What do we do?" Darae asked, rubbing his wrist where the elder had struck it. His stomach was turning in on itself in fear, and he felt he may be sick as he looked at the black ooze that coated his mother's arms and legs, and ran in small rivulets down the neck of Fandral Staghelm.

Felunian stood and strode into the empty space between the trees, stretching his hands above his head and inhaling deeply. "We take them to the one who knows more than any living druid."

"What?"

"We go to Moonglade."

Darae stared at him blankly. "How? Moonglade is far away, and we can't carry them that far! What if they die?"

Felunian rose up on the balls of his feet, then lowered himself slowly and held his hands out in front of him. Carefully, methodically, he began to move. He stuck out a foot and began to scrape a toe into the dirt, each movement as precise as a dancer's; within moments he had traced out what appeared to be a rune circle.

Darae stared blankly, then jumped when Felunian came over and carefully lifted Saliea from the lap of the Archdruid and pushed her at Darae.

"Come, bring her."

"How do we get to Moonglade?" he asked again, doing his best to carry his mother as Felunian himself hefted the large form of Staghelm.

The elder led the way to the rune circle he had scratched out in the soil, then turned and smiled down at the boy. "Some of us are old enough to remember the ancient ways."

Darae entered the circle, careful not to scuff any of the marks, and he stood there at the druid's side with his mother in his arms, and listened as Felunian spoke words so archaic Darae couldn't even be certain what language they were in. The runes around them reacted, glowing a faint blue-white, and then they flared up impossibly bright. When the runes faded, disappearing as though they'd never been placed, both the circle and the ones within it were completely gone.

* * *

At the same time as she had appeared to King Varian Wrynn of Stormwind, so had she appeared to all major leaders of the world, offering the same message. 'Surrender and convince all others to do the same.'

What she hadn't revealed, however, was the penalty for refusal.

When all the gateways became activated, with her loyal hssriii'rhak lieutenants leading and protecting them, each gateway calling forth the thousands upon hundreds of thousands hssriii'rhak soldiers to spill forth from the little pocket dimensions she held them in, she was deep within her home healing the painful wound burning in her belly. She could hear the glee of her hssriii'rhak as they received their orders - enter each city, town, village, farm, and kill, maim, and otherwise spread chaos. Attack in waves, retreat and allow their victims to recover, then come in stronger than ever and dash their hopes of survival. Wear them down, pin them within their homes and let them shiver in fear for their lives.

Throw yourselves at the enemy, die in droves. Hssriii'rhak lives meant nothing; killing one would have the same effect as killing a single ant within a single anthill, and she had anthills upon anthills ready to be called upon.

Such was the penalty of refusal.

Refusal meant death.

It was high time she weeded her garden.


	5. Chapter 5

It happened as they oversaw the removal of the dead guards from the throne room.

Varian and the four blood elves stood to one side, observing silently, when suddenly the elves in unison all twitched and turned their attention south, seemingly staring at a blank wall. It took a moment for the human king to notice their eerily peculiar reaction, but once he did he only spent a brief moment glancing at the same spot - and seeing nothing - before demanding an explanation.

"I'm...not sure," Tal'Thera murmured.

"It as though something has slid sideways, or maybe backwards," Logane offered, blinking slowly while the others nodded.

Varian looked at each of them, then with a sour expression, _politely_ asked for them to begin making some sort of sense.

"I can't explain it, my king," Tal'Thera went on, missing the dismayed and embarrassed look Malchoir flashed her. "...we must get outside, something is wrong."

"Something in the magical weave has shifted, and shifted greatly," Meriwend whispered.

Varian nodded, gestured to two of the knights helping to remove bodies. "You two, attend me. You four, let's move."

Tal'Thera looked at him in mild surprise. "My lord? Are you certain-"

Snorting, he patted the sword on his belt. "I assure you I am capable of handling myself in a fight, should it come to that...and I fear it will, and soon," he added, expression going grim as he recalled the intruder. "In fact, I'm sure it will. Let's go-"

Before they had made it seven steps down the hallway, however, a very distraught soldier stumbled up to them, panting horribly and barely able to remain standing.

One of the knights escorting them caught the man and steadied him; Varian gave him a few seconds to recover, then leaned down as the man began to babble:

"M-my lord, a p-portal! Goldshire...gone...the people dead, yet b-buildings untouched. A creature..." he paused, coughing so hard a few flecks of blood hit the floor. "A creature holds the portal open. N-nightmares spill forth! They march on the gates!"

"What do you mean?" Logane snapped, staring at the man from over Wrynn's shoulder.

"An army comes for Stormwind, and spreads in all directions! A literal flood of monsters! Snake-like creatures killing all in their wake, even livestock and wild beast!"

Varian all but picked up the other knight and threw him several steps down the hallway. "Go! Get the Stormwind Guard roused and armed! Alert the paladins and tell them to get anyone unable to fight to the cathedral, order General Johnathan to open the armory and arm every able fighter in the city." He turned to the knight supporting the gasping and trembling messenger. "Go to SI:7 and the Champion's Hall, rouse Mathias and his agents. You-"

Tal'Thera nearly jumped out of her skin when Varian suddenly whirled around on her, but his expression softened slightly even as the volume of his voice lowered.

"Go to the mages, get me every able-bodied magic user within the quarter," he said quietly. As she stuttered 'yes sirs' and 'as you wish my lords' Varian calmly raised his hands and removed a heavy ring from one finger, then pressed it into her palm. "Take this, and show it to anyone who questions you."

Tal'Thera nodded, feeling lightheaded, but folded her fingers over the heavy ring.

"And...us, King Wrynn?" Meriwend asked cautiously.

Varian looked at them, having actually forgotten them in the sudden excitement. His eyes narrowed, and he inhaled deeply. "You three...are assigned to protect Tal'Thera for the time being. She is not to leave the city unless by my orders. If I find she is gone, I will hold the three of you personally responsible for kidnapping a citizen of Stormwind and member of the Alliance, and I WILL see you three hang in the city arches for it. Now, all of you, go!"

Those around him quickly ran down the hallway, even the gasping messenger; within seconds Varian was alone in the hallway. He looked down at the floor then up at his throne on the stone dais, aware that those removing the bodies from the room had nearly doubled their speed, having all overheard the dire news. In another room of the keep his son studied, and would surely be seeking his attention soon.

The thought that war came to Stormwind yet again angered him to a depth he hadn't thought imaginable - in his mind he could still see the first city of Stormwind burning around him, and his stomach turned at the thought that his own son may witness the downfall of a city...

And it made him angry to even think such a thought. It wasn't as though he expected Stormwind to fall...but again, thinking on the sudden appearance of that strange woman, and the deaths of all his guards along with the power that had nearly crushed him in his own armor...what was he facing?

This was no simple orc army.

But...what was it?

* * *

Darae paced restlessly in the gloom of Moonglade outside the building where the Archdruid and Saliea lay under the protective eye of Remulos himself.

Remulos had come under attack by the strange creatures as well, but he had easily crushed them with his powerful magic - swatting gnats as he had put it, and he didn't sound exactly pleased that he'd been forced to kill - and sported no injuries that bled black corruption. Upon getting Fandral and Saliea to Moonglade and delivering them to the care of Remulos and the other druids, Felunian had disappeared and left Darae to pace, and so the youth continued to walk back and forth, in his own way yet another grim faced sentinel.

A footstep on the doorstep alerted him, and Darae looked up to see a female night elf he didn't know standing there, looking at him.

"You may come in, if you wish," she said after several moments of quiet. "I would not expect much, however."

Darae nodded and rushed by her, hurrying through a short hallway until he reached a room with a high ceiling - needed, as Remulos himself was within the room as well, his antlered head brushing the ceiling above. The demigod nodded to the boy as he entered and gestured, stepping aside, to give Darae a full view of the two figures laying in beds pushed close to one another.

Even laying down Staghelm made an imposing figure. His neck was swathed in a heavy bandage, and a light coverlet was pulled up over his bare chest. In a bed a few feet away lay Saliea, also covered in heavy bandages and covered with a light blanket.

Lining the walls of the room were a few druids, night elf and tauren both, all of them engaged in preparing various healing supplies - salves and poultices and bandages, potions and drafts - and all careful not to look at Darae too long.

"Greetings again, young one," Remulos said finally.

Darae looked at him, then flicked his gaze back to where his mother lay. "Greetings, elder."

Remulos, to Darae's surprise, bent his knees and lowered himself down, settling on his stomach with his four legs folded neatly beneath him. Once settled, he motioned for Darae to come closer.

"I am afraid I have nothing to tell you about their condition," the male went on. "Whatever afflicts them is resistant to our attempts to cleanse it. Staghelm is in a trance, holding back the poison, but he can neither defeat it himself nor hope to hold it at bay forever. Your mother..."

Darae nodded, swallowing hard. Saliea's face was twisted in pain, her breathing shallow, and her face bore an unnatural paleness to it. Lord Staghelm looked comatose while Saliea looked to be on her deathbed.

"What's wrong with them?"

Remulos shook his head sadly. "If I knew, young one, I would cure them."

Darae went and perched on the edge of his mother's bed, fighting the urge to cry. As usual, a crushing feeling of guilt hit him as well - he'd never quite decided how he was supposed to feel, having accepted his shan'do and her husband as his new parents when his memories of his true biological parents were still fresh in his mind. He'd often thought his true parents would be unhappy that they'd been replaced so readily...but then again, Darae thought that perhaps they'd be happy that he was being loved and cared for. The two conflicting thoughts had always brought with them a sickening feeling of guilt over not knowing the proper way to react.

Either way, the guilt and the terror were there as he looked at his ill adoptive mother and seriously wondered if he was about to have yet another parent torn from him.

"I understand you traveled to Stonetalon recently, and studied with the druids there."

Darae jumped as Remulos spoke again, his proximity to the demigod making it seem as though the antlered male had all but yelled at him.

"Y-yes, I had. How did you know?"

"The one who returned with you, Felunian. He is a druid of considerable power, might, and wisdom...and also one who is well-known for his preference of an avian form," Remulos said, smiling gently.

Nodding, Darae opened his mouth to reply, then twitched as he remembered something that felt like it had occurred ages ago. "You know, I remember the first time I met you, sir. You gave me a feather, and I wondered what it meant...I ended up shoving it up a troll's nose, but it wasn't until I returned to Darnassus and returned to my studies that I understood what it was."

Numbly, Darae began patting himself down, searching his pockets. "At first I thought it was the feather of a moonkin, one of Elune's-" he trailed off mid-sentence, grunting as he fished something from a pocket. "-but then I realized that the coloration was wrong. I couldn't figure it out until I actually got to Stonetalon." Darae held up a steel-gray feather. It was slightly darker than the one Remulos had given to him, but if Darae held it in the light just so one could see the blue sheen to the feather.

He carefully handed the feather to a smiling Remulos, the feather looking ridiculously undersized in the great druid's tree-like hand.

"That's the feather from a stormcrow hatchling that's...uhm...midway between losing its chick down and growing in its adult feathers," Darae went on, now growing quiet. "Was I...meant to find Felunian? Is he to be my new shan'do?" That last part was barely squeaked out, his attention once more on his mother and his thoughts doing their best to avoid looking directly at the fear of Saliea's death and what that would mean to him.

"You tell me," came the reply. Remulos folded his hand over the feather and it seemed to disappear, as it was not in his hand when the druid flexed his fingers. "Most make the mistake of assuming that a path for them was created upon their birth, but one must realize that life is much like travel through a forest - if you make no effort to forge a path of your own, you'll never get anywhere."

Darae nodded. "That makes sense, I guess."

Remulos nodded slowly. "It is also wise to remember that one can have many teachers over the course of a lifetime. Saliea shall always be your shan'do to you, but there is nothing wrong with accepting guidance from others as well."

"What should I do then?" Darae asked.

"See what happens. What else can one do?"

With that Remulos got up and carefully made his way out of the room, leaving Darae alone with the unconscious Archdruid and Saliea. The young night elf moved to perch on the bed beside his mother, crossing his arms and hugging them to himself.

He wasn't sure how long he stayed there, sitting silently, but after some time he realized he was hungry. He had barely twitched a muscle, preparing to stand, when within an instant there was someone in the room with him - a figure appearing from nowhere in the spanse of a blink.

"Who are you?" he snapped, jumping to his feet.

The figure, a humanoid clad in white cloth that covered every inch of his body except for a thin strip through which his eyes shown, simply bowed.

"I'm running short on time, boy. Unfortunately, I need to borrow some of yours."

Darae leapt for him, his body beginning to show the beginning signs of a shapeshift; the man in white responded by simply holding out a hand, palm toward him. Instantly Darae felt himself caught in an invisible force that held him suspended off the ground.

He kicked and flailed wildly. "HELP! GUARDS! REMULOS!"

Another blink and now the man was considerably closer to him, almost close enough that Darae could tear his throat out if he shifted to his wolf form. Glaring, he went to do just that...but paused. The man's eyes glowed a brilliant orange, and when their gazes met Darae felt drawn into them.

His body relaxed even as the man in white stepped up and placed his hand upon his chest; Darae could feel warmth emanating from it and didn't fight as the man simply tipped him backward so he floated nearly parallel with the floor, nor did he fight when the man reached up and gently slid his eyes shut.

"Just sleep, this will be over soon."

Darae, already slipping toward slumber, felt a curious sensation, almost as though a hand had settled not ON his chest but IN his chest and had grasped his heart. As he fell into a deep sleep he felt as though something was pulling at him, stretching him impossibly thin.

But he slept on, secure in the arms of the strange man in white with the orange eyes. He slept on.


	6. Chapter 6

She stood emotionlessly as she watched the orcs and their allies repel the serpentine armies that had appeared magically on the doorstep of Orgrimmar.

Vol'jin stood stoically at her side, fully aware of her true identity but maintaining the ruse that the Warchief himself stood watching the battle, instead of a simple mage clothed in an illusion of the powerful orc.

The battle outside Orgrimmar had been raging for nearly three hours now, if the hourglass haphazardly balanced on the table edge was correct and that she hadn't forgotten to flip it. The hourglass itself served another purpose, that of holding down the curling edge of a parchment map of the whole of Ogrimmar - arranged on the map were figures representing troop placement and current enemy strength as information was brought to them by scouts and observers. Meraka was no tactical master and so was leaving most of the decisions to Vol'jin, but even she could notice the peculiar thing about this attack from nowhere.

The creatures would hit one area hard, cause as much mayhem as possible, and then like water flow back and strike at some other point of their defenses...which, in any conflict, would be expected of a wise military leader.

But the peculiar thing was the enemy didn't strike at the weakest points first. It always targeted the more heavily guarded areas, attacked until that area was strengthened - and thus further weakening some other area - and then it would withdraw and strike at the next-best guarded area and repeat its tactics.

She barely listened as another trio of scouts and defenders rattled off their updates to Vol'jin, the troll changing the positions of troops on the map and then dismissing them. They all gave Meraka - or, in their understanding, Thrall - odd looks, then ran back to the fray.

After several moments of silence, Vol'jin elbowed her.

"Ya keep dat up dey gonna guess sumtin be up."

She blinked and looked at him. "Excuse me?"

"Da Warchief would be taking a more active role - ya standin' around gonna be noticed eventually."

"I am no warrior, not in Thrall's sense," she sighed. "I cannot take a more active role as I don't know what I'm doing. I am not a tactical officer, I can merely analyze as information comes to me."

"Den why ya come back at all?"

She snorted, smiling faintly. "Because the Warchief lay possibly dying because he decided to save my skin like the fool he is. The Horde needs their leaders and their icons, something to rally behind. If Thrall were absent now when his people need him most any number of things could happen."

Vol'jin chuckled and shook his head. "You and ya conspiracy theories."

"You've heard and seen Garrosh's behavior as of late, and you know he would gladly seize control if he thought Thrall gone," Meraka said sharply. "I don't want him nor anyone else thinking the Warchief is gone. Solely by being here I am protecting Thrall's power base."

"And givin' da people da inspiration dey need, I imagine," Vol'jin mused.

Meraka paused, then nodded slowly. "The Horde needs their icons," she repeated.

Vol'jin too nodded, then studied the map. "Da tings be movin' around, back to da front gates. Why ain't dey spillin' over da cliff edges into da town proper? It would be so easy ta overrun us, with da numbers dey got."

"I am more worried about how the other capitals fare," Meraka said grimly. "We cannot be the only ones being attacked - I know my associates in both Silvermoon and the Undercity would have felt the arcane disturbance and we would have seen a response by now."

She'd returned to Orgrimmar to find the city just beginning to weather this bizarre siege, right after a strange surge in power had washed over her; she'd managed to make it inside the city and found a brief moment in the chaos to attempt to understand the power surge and to try and contact anyone outside Orgrimmar.

Her initial attempts to send a message to her contacts in Silvermoon City had failed miserably - it was as though someone had put a giant wall between herself and anywhere else, for she found she couldn't even teleport herself free of Orgrimmar. Every attempt slammed her into a massively unstable energy field, and she knew without a doubt that the strange gateway from which the serpentine creatures poured had to be the source.

The only issue was what she was going to do about it, if she even COULD do anything about it. Right now, as she'd told Vol'jin only moments before, she was interested in protecting Thrall's right to remain Warchief - she had no doubt in her mind that if any hint of Thrall's current condition reached the wrong ears, there would be a mad grab for leadership. With her posing as Thrall, live and well, they'd have to act against her and she was more than ready to face any such assaults.

"C'mon, we need ta get closer to da front lines. If ya wanna keep playin' at Warchief, ya gonna have to be the whole ting."

Barely hearing the troll, she nodded and mutely followed him toward the gates of the city, where the battle had once again swung around to. She lifted her 'hammer' and let forth a few blasts of lightning - she was extremely grateful that her wand shot lightning, as it only added further to her illusion of Thrall - and then let out a piercing war cry. The fighters in front of her did not turn, but their voices raised and added to her own and instantly there was a frenzied renewal among the fighting orcs: their Warchief walked among them and his strength was their strength.

Never mind that 'his' strength was actually a 'her.'

Meraka swung her 'hammer' once over her head and pointed it above everyone's head, to the thickest clustering of their enemies.

"Forward brothers and sisters! FOR THE HORDE!"

* * *

The bottle he held was full of a light that pulsed gently, a vivid green that lit him and his surroundings with a soft glow. He felt guilty at having taken it from such a young person, but again he had chosen a young person - and an elf at that - solely because he knew the loss of a few years of life wouldn't be so catastrophic on a youth as it would an older person.

Even still, guilt made him pause as he reached to uncork the bottle. As he grew further from his mistress's control the power that kept him alive was leaving him, and the more freedom he seized the shorter his own lifespan would be - not that he was truly alive in the sense of flesh and blood, but alive enough that he breathed and walked and existed. The more he fell from control, the more frequently he would need to siphon life from other persons to sustain himself.

It rankled him, to be sure, and he found himself craving what he had once been so acutely that it brought phantom memories of pain to mind. It wasn't right to steal life from others to keep himself on this plane of existence...but neither could he allow himself to die fully, not without shattering this whole mess and sorting the pieces out to where they had once been.

No...he had to keep doing this, much as he would like to avoid it.

He uncorked the bottle and quickly downed the contents, closing his eyes as he felt the young night elf's stolen life force bleed through him like a fresh breeze. Cautiously he sat the bottle on the ground at his feet and began to unwrap the cloth that bound him head to toe. When he finally stood, wholly naked, he conjured a small orb of light and examined himself.

Smiling faintly, he saw that his skin was beginning to grow rosy, to actually take on some sort of pigmented color whereas before the color had slowly leached away leaving him a white almost as pure as the cloth wrappings he wore, growing more pale as more of his life force left him and leaving only tiny pockets of color mainly nestled around his eyes, in the hollows of his cheeks, and the palms of his hands and feet. Seeing himself return to a more natural color alleviated some of his guilt, and reminded him that he DID have the strength to go on, to do this task and put the world back to rights.

He began to dress himself again, quickly and efficiently - it wouldn't do to change his behavior now and possibly alert his mistress to his increasing level of freedom from her control.

Things were beginning to come together...he could only hope the pieces he'd set in place would stay where they needed to be.

* * *

The tauren were not faring well.

Never large in number to begin with, those in Thunderbluff were frantically trying to repel the invaders that had come rushing at them over the plains of Mulgore. Lives were spent for every inch they managed to reclaim, and to top things off their leader Cairne had finally succumbed to the venom that also afflicted Thrall - both shaman slept on as though dead.

Even more alarming was the fact that anyone with any sort of connection to the natural magic of the land was in danger of falling into the same death-like slumber; gaping wound, tiny scratch, it didn't matter what sort of injury the nature-users took, all became infected with the black ooze and soon fell senseless. The tents of the healers in Thunderbluff were slowly filling with afflicted people, and the available forces defending Thunderbluff were shrinking as there were few within the nomadic race that didn't have some sort of connection to nature.

Pit was helping attend the wounded at the moment, having been among a small group that had hauled back injured comrades to the healers. He would soon be back out, back among the fighting, but for now he was carefully cleaning and bandaging the hurt, settling them and getting them as comfortable as possible. Looking up he could see Whisper moving between the clusters of people, tending where she could - she was one of the handful of nature-magic users that was not affected; the healers had not rushed into battle, and now they found themselves caring for far too many people, and wondering as they did so if some of those tending would somehow become infected as well - just because it seemed an injury was what spread the ooze didn't mean prolonged contact could be ruled out either.

The blood elf knotted a bandage and slid his goggles up onto his forehead, rubbing at his eyes and trying not to instantly squint as the world went blurry. His robes were covered in blood and sticking to him in some places and he stank of fel magics and sweat, his body ached from both physical exertion and from wielding magic longer than he was accustomed to. The tauren he had just tended to was a male he didn't know but had carried from the field of battle - more 'drag' than 'carry' as the bovine-like humanoid was easily a foot taller and weighed about six times more than the blood elf did - and now the warlock quickly moved away as he sensed the discomfort in him, knowing all-too-well from his time spent with Whisper that his saturation in fel magics was like a terrible smell to most tauren.

He quickly exited the tent to avoid bothering anyone else and once he was outside he took in several deep breaths. The air was hot and heavy and carried the taint of fresh blood; the sky looked as though it would rain soon, which while it would help clean the air it would make fighting miserable and possibly impossible. The blood elf shuddered, thinking of the dire consequences a slip in mud could bring about while fighting those..._monsters._

And where the hell had all these things COME from? And so many? Pit knew from the events from only a short time ago that these...things...had been spawned from a giant tree. He had even been present when said tree had been destroyed, so where had all these snake-beasts come from? Was there another tree no one knew about? Had that one tree been regrown? Out of those he thought may know - the green dragon Pathora, priestess Catwissa and her people, the human Mikael Sullivan - he had no way of contacting. Perhaps those he thought would know already KNEW and were out there combating this new threat all ready.

'I can't do anything to help them...but I can help the tauren,' he mused, reaching up to snap his goggles back down over his eyes, feeling their strain decrease as the world swam back into crystal clarity through their tinted lenses.

A soft clucking led him to where his hawkstrider, a gangly bird with a brilliant purple plumage, awaited him - he had opted not to summon his dreadsteed, that which more or less defined a powerful warlock, out of respect for the tauren...though he regretted it now as he always did as he took in the less-than-intimidating strider. He never would understand why his people had chosen hawkstriders as their signature battle mounts, as he felt they were more fit for the dinner table than a battle field.

He drew close to the bird, reaching for the reigns to swing himself onto its back...then paused as two things occurred to him.

Hawkstriders were constantly fidgeting...his was being suspiciously still. Hawkstriders also didn't cluck like -

A figure came bursting over the strider's back even as the strider itself dropped to the ground, lifeless. Pit's first startled spell burst out around him, a wall of fire and force that should have blown his attacked back, but the figure sliced through it as though it were a silk curtain. The blood elf had one brief view of a humanoid in white before they both collided; the elf's vision exploded in white-hot agony, then went dark.

* * *

Head pounding, Pit let his eyes slowly drift open.

Wherever he was it was dark, damp, and rather warm, and the air had a sharp tang to it that was vastly different from what he remembering smelling at-

He stared down at his blurry feet, becoming aware that his goggles were gone and that he was now barefoot. As sensory information began to unscramble itself inside his head he also became aware that his robes were gone - he was stripped down to his pants and undershirt - and his arms were stretched above his head and secured strongly. He could feel where his assailant had struck him on the temple, and the first sensible thought he had was 'he could have killed me' and in a way wished that person had as he tried to logic beyond the horrible pain in his head.

There was stone floor beneath his feet and once he could turn his head without inducing terrible nausea the blood elf could see he was chained between two stone pillars, the chains just tight enough to hold the elf upright whether he was standing under his own power or not. He tugged feebly at them, then his attention was drawn back to in front of him as the faintest footstep reached his ears.

Squinting his eyes in the dim lighting, he finally made out the blurry blob-shape of an approaching person, a person _in white. _

"_Who are you?" _he croaked, wincing as his whisper sounded as loud as thunder to his aching head.

"_I'm sorry," _was all the person said. A male.

"_Sorry? For what? Where am I?"_

The white-clad figure came closer, Pit squinting to try and bring him into clearer focus - all he could tell was this was a person dressed head to toe in white cloth.

The white person finally stepped up so he was within a foot of the restrained blood elf, and now Pit could see that he held something cupped in one hand.

"_I'm sorry," _the man said again.

He stiffened the fingers on his empty hand and then jabbed forward; Pit gasped, a ragged inhaling, as unimaginable pain blossomed from the middle of his chest. He let his gaze drop down and could see, with a considerable degree of disbelief, that the man had stabbed the four fingers of his hand into his chest - he could feel the man's fingernails grating against his ribcage.

A cough worked its way out of the startled, agonized elf's chest, a wet cough that tasted of copper. What could have been an apologetic noise came from behind the cloth covering the man's face, and Pit could only watch numbly as he withdrew his hand - dripping - from the wound and then held open his other hand that held something.

Another cough came as Pit recognized the object the man held, a smoky gray crystal; as he watched the crystal seemed to grow less substantial, became harder to see, and then the man simply blew on it and it scattered like smoke. The vapor hung in the air for a brief instant, then was drawn into the gaping, bloody hole torn in the blood elf's chest.

As soon as it touched him a burning sensation began to spread, and despite himself Pit began to writhe and twitch. As seconds passed and the gray vapor disappeared entirely into him the burning grew worse, and began to work its way deeper into his chest cavity. Soon it felt as though every nerve in his body was on fire and it was all he could do to remind himself to continue breathing.

Suddenly the pillars and the chains were gone and the elf found himself floating...not that he cared, really. All he knew was he was suddenly freed and that his pain was so great that he curled in on himself immediately; on some level his mind acknowledged a liquid sound, a sloshing and then a great splash, and then there were objects grappling him around neck, wrists, waist, and ankles. They unfolded him and then dragged him down, nose and mouth filling with liquid as he was pulled beneath the surface of a roiling purple pool.

The man in white hovered over the frothing pool, watching as the blood elf was pulled down to rest on its runed bottom at the side of the human warlock. The runes flared then returned to their usual glow and pattern, and after a moment the man floated back to the edge of the pool and landed gently.

He had returned the original essence to its owner; the elf's wound would heal in a matter of moments and then he too would settle into the same stasis that held the human warlock. The blood elf was not needed...not by the man's master, anyway. To the man himself, however, the blood elf would be incredibly useful.

He looked down at his bloodstained hand and sighed; he would need to come up with an excuse for the blood elf's presence, and quickly, before his master noticed the addition.

* * *

The latest messenger had literally keeled over dead from his injuries after delivering the message he carried from the night elves. Velen had sadly closed the night elf male's eyes, then stepped away to let attendants take the body and ready it for burial.

The night elves had easily beaten back the invaders that had appeared on their shores, as Teldrassil was more or less just a tree jutting from the waters of the sea. The messenger's report spoke of how the combined efforts of Elune's priestesses along with the strength of Cenarion druids had driven them back and into some sort of portal that the invading beasts had come from. Tyrande herself had forced the portal closed, and the messenger had emphasized that that act had badly weakened the high priestess to the point that she wasn't able to come to the draenei's aid yet, but she would once she possessed the strength to fight once again. Velen had only wished the messenger had known HOW the priestess had closed the gate.

"Elune be willing...we...will..." the messenger had gasped, moments before the light left his eyes and his last breath had rattled out of him. The priest duo that had been attempting to support him, to keep him tethered to the realm of the living, now were the ones who silently bore his body away; Velen had insisted the male be tended to first, but the male had instead insisted he tell his message - perhaps he knew that he would not survive the injuries he'd sustained, fighting his way through to the Exodar.

It was yet more one blow to the Prophet's already strained sensitivities.

The Exodar was disturbingly empty, all able-bodied fighters outside struggling to hold back the flood of mysterious serpent-like creatures that sprang from a gate that had suddenly appeared midway between Exodar and Azure Watch, effectively cutting those outside the Exodar off from those inside it. They had heard a single communication from those outside, that they had all scattered into hiding in the hills and the vale - even the blood elves intent on destroying them had fled, leaving the draenei to fend for themselves.

All that remained inside the Exodar were those unable to fight - injured, sick, the elderly, and of course the children. Velen himself, plus a small group of his elite guard, stood watch over the small handful of children that had been in the Exodar at the time of the attack. Twelve in all, composed of ages from the very young to those just on the border of young adulthood, they huddled in a small circle with the guards arranged in a ring around them. Velen sat with them, entertaining the youngest in an idle manner, occasionally looking above them to where O'ros floated.

He knew without a doubt that, even though the naaru stayed within the Exodar, that the great being of Light was lending his strength and guidance to every draenei that fought above. No doubt that, should something catastrophic occur, and all those above be killed or captured, the naaru would do everything in his power to preserve those that huddled beneath him - and the fact that Velen was one of those 'huddlers' rankled the ancient draenei more than anything else ever had.

He'd faced great sorrow and hardship in his lifetime of fleeing from the Legion. He'd seen so many die, so many sacrifice themselves to preserve their people...never had he been given that chance himself. The draenei looked to him for leadership, he was their Prophet, and so many lives had perished to protect him and many more would perish.

And all he wanted was a chance to, just once, protect his people as they protected him.

A musical chuckle wafted through his thoughts, and Velen looked up at O'ros, knowing that the naaru had likely felt and heard every thought the draenei had just had.

_All protect in different ways, Velen. You never were one for battle and bloodshed...but look, they all leave to you the guardianship of their children, that which matters most to them. They leave them with you because they know that, if all else fails, you yourself will fall defending them to your last breath and beyond. Do not despair because you cannot be a warrior, that was never your path._

Velen nodded silently to himself, then allowed himself a small smile as a youngling clambered over to him, nearly falling over his knee. He gathered the little boy up and settled him in his lap.

"Would you like to hear a story?"

* * *

"The cure is in my blood."

Darae came awake instantly, disoriented and groggy. The surface beneath his back was soft, warm, and he turned his head to find a pillow rested beneath it.

Memories of an attacker in white came racing back and he bolted upright, wildly looking around. He saw he was in a tiny room, in a bed, and that he'd very likely scared the daylights out of the very young female night elf sitting at his bedside.

"Where is he?" he asked, blinking. His voice to him sounded odd, like someone else was speaking through him.

"W-who?" she asked, obviously still badly startled.

"There was a man in white, he - where am I? Are my mother and the Archdruid okay? Are they-"

"They are the same as ever," she said a tad cautiously. "There...you are in a nearby room, there was only you."

"What?"

"You. There was no man...you were found in the floor as you are..."

"As I am? What do you mean by that? I've got to...there WAS a man, I know there was." A brief memory of being _tugged_ at came to him, and still he sounded _wrong _to himself. "I have to find him, he could be anywhere by now!"

Darae swung his legs out from under the light sheet that covered him, then froze. As his feet came free of the fabric they lightly trailed on the floor...the floor that, when he woke up this morning, had hung several inches below his feet. He leaned over his legs and stared down, startled; his bare toes rested lightly on the floor, and this wasn't a low bed.

He looked at his hand resting on the edge of the bed near his knee and sucked in a breath - it wasn't the hand of a boy, small and thin, but a much larger hand. Darae slowly sat up, bringing his hands up to his face as he did so, hardly breathing.

Longer fingers, wider palms. The soft hairs that had covered his arms had grown a tad thicker, more noticeable, and it speckled arms with denser muscle.

The strange hands, HIS strange hands, crept up his even stranger arms and then ran over his chest. Broader, muscled. They came up his neck and to his head, feeling a lean face with a scraggly beard and hair longer than what he'd had when he'd been attacked earlier. He pulled a handful of hair down in front of his eyes - it was the same blue as before, as it had always been.

Dizzily he stood, noticing how _far away _the floor seemed. He grabbed at the sheet to wrap it around his waist as it finally occurred to him that he was nude beneath it.

"Mirror," he croaked, licking suddenly dry lips.

"E-excuse me?" the girl behind him stuttered.

"Mirror," he said again, his voice still sounding so wrong, too deep and -

He heard a scuffling on the floor as the girl fled, and moments later he heard not one but two pairs of footsteps returning. He turned to see the girl and Felunian in the doorway, and even though he stood across the room Darae couldn't miss the brief flicker of raw surprise in the elder druid's eyes.

The female carefully handed him a small silver mirror, and Darae held it in trembling hands and raised it in front of his eyes to see...

His face, staring back at him. But much older.

The mirror slipped out of his hands and hit the floor, clanging loudly and rolling under the bed. For a long, terrible moment time seemed to stand still.

Darae mutely tied the bed sheet around his waist, his _adult _waist, the girl and Felunian staring at him. Finally, the antlered elder stepped through the doorway and up to him, gripping his shoulders gently.

"Darae. Darae, you said something when you woke."

Darae stared at him dumbly, noticing in a panic that he was nearly close to the giant druid's height.

Felunian shook him roughly. "Darae! You said something when you woke, _what did you say?"_

Swallowing hard, Darae opened his mouth to deny having said anything, but instead something else came out.

"The cure is in my blood."

Felunian stared at him. "What?"

"The cure...is in my blood..." Darae said again, somehow piercing through the fog of shock that covered him. 'The cure is in my blood? What does that mean? Who told me that?'

He knew without having to voice it that he HAD been told that, but for the life of him couldn't remember who...

But, it suddenly didn't matter.

He shoved free of Felunian and ran from the room in a panic, recognizing that what the female had told him about him being nearby to the room where his mother was was true: she was two doorways down. He burst into the room, seeing that the Archdruid and Saliea lay as still as ever.

It was an odd sensation he was having - he somehow knew exactly what he needed to do, but could not understand how he knew or why he needed to do it. Either way, he hurried to his mother's bedside and began unwrapping the bandages around her arms, trying to unwrap as quickly as possible while still being gentle.

With the oozing wounds open before him, he began to glance around for something sharp, something pointy, _something. _After a few minutes of fruitless searching he finally just shoved his fingertips into his mouth and bit down hard, hardly conscious of the pain and of the hot blood now dribbling down his chin. He flexed his fingers, squeezing them to force as much blood out of them as possible, then held his bloody hand over the black ooze and let the blood dribble down over it.

The first drop hit and began to sizzle, like water in a hot iron pan. The more drops that pattered onto the black gunk, the more it fizzed and sizzled, and even began to smoke, but the most surprising thing about it was the ooze was beginning to shrink in volume. It melted down, in on itself, as though it were a garden slug come into contact with salt. Darae kept flexing and squeezing his fingers, really getting a good steady drip, and after a moment switched to let his blood splatter over her other arm with the same results.

A disbelieving laugh bubbled out between his lips, one that seemed to snap him back to reality. His fingers throbbed as they bled, but within moments the black corruption that had coated Saliea's injuries was gone. Her arms were clear of it.

With his one good hand Darae began to tug at the other bandages on her, determined to see his shan'do, his mother, clean of the black crud.

Behind him unnoticed in the doorway, a quiet Felunian held back anyone trying to enter the room, intently watching the boy - now a man, _somehow_ - miraculously cure his adoptive mother.

Quite some time later Darae lay on the floor between the two beds, cradling his torn hand against his bare chest - the blood flow from his fingers had eventually slowed despite his efforts to keep his bites open, and he'd had to tear several new holes in his fingers over the course of curing first his mother and then the Archdruid. His hand hurt immensely, but he had finally realized how exhausted he was and the shock of having woken up so _different _had finally set in.

He didn't respond when finally Felunian allowed others into the room; there was a blur of legs around him, attendants magically soothing and healing Staghelm's and Saliea's injuries, all breathing sighs of relief as the wounds closed fully and showed no further sign of infection. Darae felt gentle but firm hands seize his arm and pull him upright, and an arm wrap around his waist when he stumbled and nearly fell.

"Come on, youngling. Focus. You can walk."

Felunian's voice sounded very far away, but the intent was clear: Darae wouldn't remember it later, but he finally got his feet under him and managed to walk on his own - with Felunian only guiding him with a hand on his shoulder - and walked back to the small room he'd first awakened in. Someone unknotted the sheet from around his waist and shoved him back onto the bed, covering him up with a heavier blanket while yet another seized his injured hand and made it whole once more before laying it across his chest.

"Sleep Darae. We'll sort this out when you're feeling more yourself."

'More myself?' he thought dazedly. 'I'm not myself.'

'What am I?'


	7. Chapter 7

The man in white was amazed at how quickly everything had come together.

He stood now at the edge of the pool full of the purple fluid, seeking within himself the sputtering spark of life that kept him going. A small part of him found it ironic that the further from his mistress's control he strayed, the quicker his life fled him. His life depended on her attention and control, but if he succumbed to her again, the life on all of Azeroth would fall...would be remade. He would eventually need to die to protect everything he'd once loved, and STILL loved. That thought, coupled with the life force he had taken from the young night elf in Moonglade, burned within him and strengthened the spark in his chest. He would succeed. He had to.

Bending down to rest on one knee, he placed his palm flat against the liquid's surface and waited for the small area of it around his hand to calm. As soon as that tiny area went as smooth as glass he felt a connection between himself and the two warlocks at the very bottom of the pool.

He ignored the blood elf - there was still pain and shock there over his injury, even though the chest wound had quickly healed. The blood elf was steadily regaining power, something the elf didn't understand and his confusion and panic echoed up the line that connected him to the man in white and the man soothed him the best he could. He tried to impart wordlessly to the elf that it wouldn't be long before he was free once more; the man couldn't be certain if the blood elf understood fully, but the sensations of fear and stress faded to a more tolerable level.

The elf taken care of, the man turned his attention to the human warlock Mikael. The human seemed to greet him wearily, and the man felt a brief shock as he realized the human immediately recognized him; he felt a hint of concern as Mikael followed the line of connection between them, back up to the man in white, and he knew Mikael could feel him as clearly as if the warlock were within the man's skin.

"I know. I should have told you, I should have found a way. I wish things had been different...but what has happened cannot be changed. All I can do is try and correct the mistakes that were made. All I can do is protect you."

There was a feeling of quiet sadness, and the man smiled. "No, don't feel that way. We have all been caught up in events and lives we never would have chosen on our own."

The man fell silent, and he knew the warlock at the bottom of the well was reading his emotions and thoughts; there was then a sudden feeling of concern and alarm from the human, and the man smiled again.

"It is no more than I deserve," the man murmured. He felt a vehement denial from the warlock, and chuckled as he shook his head. "Arguing is pointless, save your energy...you will need a keen clarity of mind. Things have fallen into place...I go now to set the events in motion. I..."

His voice trailed off, and now the warlock was treated to the man's own deep sense of guilt. The man felt a gentle reassurance come from Mikael, but nevertheless simply shook his head.

"I worry for you."

Again a warm reassurance, followed by a brief sense of inquiry.

"I know you are strong enough, but it...terrifies me to no end to place you in such a position."

The man got the general sense of a sarcastic reply of some sort, followed by amusement.

And then...forgiveness.

He smiled and removed his hand from the pool, the connection between himself and the warlock below ending as he shook drops of liquid from his fingers.

It was time to begin.

* * *

Saliea lay limply across Fandral's lap, the Archdruid wearing an unusually tender expression as he gently stroked his foster daughter's hair. He had awakened not too long ago, had been told of Darae's miraculous curing of whatever it was that had been coursing through their body; it had been a situation Fandral had found more frightening than anything else he'd ever known in his life: the terrible sense of being held somewhere, helpless, as something or someone drained away his power. He'd been utterly unable to free himself, could only cling to his ability to hold whatever it was somewhat at bay, but it had been a losing battle...he'd been slowly losing himself to the poison.

Saliea hadn't fared well at all. She'd taken a great deal more of the poison than he had, and she'd obviously suffered from it. It had taken her much longer to wake up and she was still groggy and seemed hardly aware of where she was. She'd also appeared to age several years as her face was drawn and appeared thinner, the faintest trace of wrinkles appearing around her eyes and in the corners of her mouth. Laying in his lap, partly dozing, it had seemed to be all she could do to even keep breathing evenly.

Darae was elsewhere, speaking with Remulos and an elder druid Staghelm had never personally met before...and someone he suspected was actually a great deal older than he. It had been very disconcerting to awake to an antlered druid standing guard over him; Fandral had, for a very brief moment before his senses reoriented themselves, had actually believed it was Malfurion Stormrage who stood over him.

For now, it was simply Staghelm and Saliea.

She had improved in the last few hours. Her head was resting on a thin pillow balanced across his thighs, her slight body stretched out down the bed beside his legs. He had not placed her there; she had crawled there on her own, weakly collapsing and refusing to move beyond lifting her head to allow him to place the pillow there.

The wooden headboard of the bed dug uncomfortably into his back where he leaned against it, but he paid it little attention as he alternated between staring down at Saliea and staring out the tiny, round window that allowed the permanent dusk of Moonglade to filter into the room. From his vantage point, he could see a thin sliver of the sky, and the stars, above the canopy of trees.

"Do you know..." he said quietly, glancing down at Saliea before looking out the window again. "Before I found you a suitable family, and you were still in my care...when you were restless at night, I would take you outside, and show you the stars. I did the same...with my own son, when he was an infant. Our kind find the night sky calming, and it was no different with you."

He ceased stroking her hair, images of a bright-eyed baby staring up at him coming to mind. Saliea had been so tiny he could hold her with only one arm, a stark difference from his son. And now he was holding her again, if only because he'd come so close to losing her...again.

"I don't look at them as much...as I used to," she wheezed quietly. "There's little time for it anymore, it seems."

"Very true. You do appear to still possess that need for physical contact for comfort," he added dryly. He remembered that too, from the time when she'd been in his care; she always liked being held, or at least knowing someone was close by, something that Valstann had grown out of as he'd gotten older but Saliea never had. He had observed it her entire life, and even those times when she went off on her own the moment she returned to her people she'd sought out those she cared about and spent five times as much time in their company. It was interesting to behold, and now not at all surprising for her to be laying where she was. His legs were now beginning to go slightly numb, however, the tips of his toes already tingling uncomfortably.

She laughed weakly. "I can't help it...there's underlying problems with being born feral. Contact is one of them...needing a pack, that's another."

Fandral snorted. "A pack."

She turned her head to look up at him out of the corner of one eye. "Or a pride, whichever term you...prefer."

Fandral snorted again, and Saliea rolled her eyes.

"Do you really...do you really wish for me to teach a group of students?" she went on, voice just above a whisper. "I honestly do not feel I am ready for it."

"Think of it as my attempt to give you a pack," he replied dryly. "If I did not believe you were not fit for instructing, I would not have made my decision. There are more young ones wanting to explore the druidic path, and I would see them placed with capable guides. You have learned much and learned well in your years as a druid, and there aren't many who have devoted their time to fully exploring what it means to be feral."

"I only devoted my time because I was terrible at everything else," Saliea said, smiling helplessly.

The briefest of smiles passed over Fandral's face. "Indeed. I gather from your lack of arguments that you agree with me, and will not refuse further?"

"No. I'm just too tired to argue at the moment."

Fandral opened his mouth to reply when there was a quiet knock at the door; he looked up to see Darae framed in the doorway, looking in at them timidly. It was still a sort of shock to see the boy unnaturally aged as he was, and Darae seemed as uncomfortable in his "new" body as others were when they saw him. Fandral gestured for him to enter the room then helped Saliea up into a sitting position before removing himself from the bed and settling into a nearby chair, clenching and unclenching his toes to work blood back into them.

Darae more or less flopped onto the bed and Saliea drew him into a hug.

"Are you okay, Darae?"

"I think so," the boy replied, voice muffled. "I'm not in any pain...not unless I ram my head into a low-hanging door or something. I hate being this tall," he sighed. He pulled back out of the hug and stared at Saliea with such a forlorn look that Saliea almost pulled him back into her arms. "Mother, can they fix this? I don't want to be like this until I'm _actually_ this old."

Saliea smiled gently, but sadly. "I don't know, dear. We will certainly try to put everything back to how it ought to be." She ruffled his hair, then stroked the scraggly beard that dotted his cheeks. "I don't think your father will be too pleased at needing to instruct you on shaving this early."

Darae gave her a sour look, then thumped his back against the headboard. "Very funny."

Saliea leaned back with a small chuckle. "It is better to laugh than to cry, Darae."

Suddenly, there at the foot of the bed, a man stood. Before anyone could do more than twitch in reaction, a heavy pressure settled against them and pressed them all back into where they sat.

The man was wrapped head to toe in white cloth with only his eyes showing, eyes that glinted orange at them from between the open slit of cloth. Darae jerked at the invisible magic that held him where he sat, nearly snarling as he struggled.

"You! You did this to me! You made me old!"

Fandral growled and began to test the strength of the magic that held him down. The man held up his hands; the magic holding them all down squeezed intensely, then lessened back to its original level of pressure the moment Fandral and Darae both ceased struggling. "Please, sit and listen, I don't have much time. Many lives depend on what I need you to do."

Saliea sat still where she was held, the color slowly draining from her face. "I know you..."

The orange eyes shifted to her. "...yes, you do."

After a moment he fixed each of them in turn with a silent look, then began to pace. "Listen well. We all know Azeroth is just one in countless worlds shaped by the titans. Outland is another. Each has its own history, its own gods, its own magic. There is a world out there in the Twisting Nether that has no name, that was home to two races of beings that are humanoid in appearance but possess a degree of magical talent unsurpassed by even the ancient eredar prior to their joining of the Burning Legion. These races were a race of serpent-like beings, and another that is much like a...a softened joining of a draenei and a human - colored skin, rudimentary horns, pointed ears. These two races lived together on this planet in relative peace...until the gods of their world warred."

"There were three of them, born of Chaos, Order, and Balance, their true names lost now to time. Chaos began the war by striking out at her sister, Order. Balance went to place himself between the warring sisters, but was too late to stop the destruction. Chaos overwhelmed and mortally wounded Order, and cast both her siblings into the great dark void, where they tumbled until they fell to Azeroth."

"Order has since died, her essence scattered across Azeroth and now part of our world. Balance has disappeared out of grief for the war he was unable to stop. And Chaos..."

"Without Order and Balance to complete the harmony of her world, Chaos' presence corrupted everything. The Effesoa, the horned humanoids, and the Hssriii'rhak, the serpent-like beings, the races of that world, fell to war as well as their maddened god's essence corrupted them. Their fighting, and Chaos' unrestrained presence, destroyed the life on their world...those Effesoa or Hssriii'rhak who survived the fighting found themselves slowly starving to death on a dead world."

"One of the final survivors, an Effesoa woman named Daranara, fully mad with Chaos' desires, lamented to her goddess that she had not killed Balance before casting him away."

"Chaos responded by flinging Daranara from the world, protected and blessed, and tasked with finding Balance and Order, and using them to bring Chaos to a new world."

"Daranara found them, here, on Azeroth. Order has since died from her wounds at the hands of Chaos, and Balance had disappeared. But Daranara knows that this is the world they fell to, and so will bring Chaos here."

The man finally paused in speaking, pacing back and forth as he allowed his captive audience to digest everything they'd just been bombarded with. For the most part they seemed to be simply staring at him in confusion and anger. He raised a hand to release them from the magic holding them in place, maybe with a show of trust-

"This Daranara would set her mad goddess free here, and would turn Azeroth into what her homeworld became," said a soft voice from behind him.

The man turned to see a huge, antlered druid leaning in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"How does she plan on opening a gateway between Azeroth and her goddess?" he went on, looking directly at him.

The man bit his lower lip - even though no one could see that through his covering of cloth - then inhaled deeply. "..._sacrifice_ is needed. There is a man...a man on Azeroth who has all the world's magic open to him. His death, while serving as a conduit to that magical energy, will be enough to tear open a gate between our world and Daranara's, allowing Chaos through."

"You cannot possibly be taking this man seriously?" Fandral snapped, once again beginning to struggle against the forces holding him in his chair. "This man is obviously mad!"

"No," Felunian said quietly. "There are reports of armies of serpent-like creatures washing over the face of Azeroth, making no attempts to do anything but kill. Tell me, is this Daranara behind this? Is this somehow part of her plan?"

The man nodded. "Yes. Daranara has set her Hssriii'rhak slaves – the ones she has bred by infecting the people of this world with foul magics - free upon the populace of Azeroth to draw attention away from what is about to happen."

"Where is Mikael?" Saliea suddenly asked sharply. The man turned to look at her silently, and she glared back at him. "Where is he? He's the one she's going to kill, isn't he? He has that-"

"The warlock was captured quite some time ago, but he is fine. For now. He has a role he must play, as do you all," he said firmly, looking from Felunian to the other three night elves. "I have told you what has happened, and what will happen. Now, I tell you what MUST happen."

He began to pace once more, first fixing Darae with his gaze. "You, young man, must travel to Winterspring and cure a green dragon there of the same poison you cured the Archdruid and your mother of. The poison acts like a magical draining agent - it is directly draining any magical energy from anyone it infects, and channels it to the Hssriii'rhak high priests. It affects only nature-magic users, as the natural magics are the only magics a Hssriii'rhak can use." The man smiled at Darae sadly. "I'm sorry, but I placed the cure within your blood because I needed someone who was mortal, and also a source of pure natural magic...only a youth would fit both requirements."

"A youth?" Darae sputtered back at him. "Then why did you DO THIS to me?!" Despite the fact that his hands were stuck in his lap, pinned under the magic that held him, Darae still attempted to gesture to his unnaturally aged body.

Again, a sad smile. "Because you needed to be older to withstand the strain of the second task you must complete. After curing the green dragon, you must ride him into the Emerald Dream, and into the Nightmare."

All druids protested immediately and loudly at that, and he held up his hands and waited for them to fall silent. "You will have to, it is the only way."

"Why?" Fandral snapped. "Anything caught within the Nightmare becomes trapped in it. I will not allow you to send Darae into madness."

"Daranara fully examined all magics on our world when she found Azeroth," the man said evenly. "When she found the Nightmare, she combined what was left of her blessing from Chaos with a small bit of the Nightmare, creating a phantom Nightmare of sorts. It was through this that she discovered she could use ancient trees to breed a mindless version of the Hssriii'rhak by using slumbering victims, and also she discovered she could create crystals that would absorb unlimited magical power. Mikael is not ley-touched as the naaru seem to believe – his malady is quite similar to that, but is not quite the same thing. He was implanted with one of these crystals, and its presence is what drew power to him. It is this crystal that has now become so much a part of him that to remove it will destroy him, and it is that which must happen – the crystal will be torn free, and once free from Mikael's body, it will produce the energy needed to power Daranara's portal."

"The phantom Nightmare is within the Emerald Dream now, the green dragons have not realized that there are now TWO Nightmares within their realm, a real one and a fake one. It is into the fake one you must go, and destroy the crystal that is placed there so she cannot create more Hssriii'rhak."

The man turned his attention to Saliea. "I swear to you that Darae will not become trapped in this phantom Nightmare."

"I don't believe you," she said, voice trembling slightly. "I know who you are, now."

The man hung his head and exhaled noisily. "I know." He reached up and began to unwind the cloth around his head, letting the wrappings drop to the floor as he slowly revealed his face. His identity revealed to all, he walked to the bed and knelt beside it, resting his hand over one of Saliea's, feeling her stiffen at his touch and flinch away.

"I am well and truly sorry for any harm this body may have inflicted upon you," Datavian said quietly. "There are large stretches of my memory that are gone, there are holes in my soul that will never be repaired. I have suffered greatly as Daranara's puppet, she wore my body like a coat and through me has committed many horrific acts... I do not fully know what I may have done to you while Daranara was in control...but I swear to you, from the depths of my soul, that I am so very sorry."

After several long moments he stood and turned to face Fandral. "I will give you the means to force the portals through which the Hssriii'rhak pour closed, but be wary; Tyrande Whisperwind closed them through what amounts to brute force, and was caught in the backlash of retreating energy. It sapped her strength immensely, and if you are too close when you destroy the gates the resulting drain may even kill you."

"How can I know I can trust you?" Fandral snapped.

Datavian snapped his fingers and released everyone from the magic holding them down. "Because we don't have time to argue otherwise," he replied.

He reached into the straps of cloth crisscrossing over his chest and removed a crude dagger made of a jagged piece of yellow crystal. "Take this. Place six drops of your blood upon the blade and invoke the name of Chaos."

Fandral stared at him, eyes narrowed. "And that's it?"

"Hardly, but you will know what else you must do afterward," Datavian replied, offering the dagger to the Archdruid pommel-first.

He turned, presenting Staghelm with a clear shot at his back; for a moment he did in fact expect to feel the rough edges of the dagger plunging into spine, but no attack came. Breathing a silent sigh of relief, Datavian turned to Darae and held out a hand.

"I will send you to Winterspring, but I cannot accompany you. I have my own part in this to play."

"I will go with him," Felunian said, stepping forward.

Datavian nodded, but held up a finger. "Be aware that you cannot follow him into the phantom Nightmare, you nor the dragon." When Felunian nodded, Datavian gestured for him to step closer to the younger druid. The two of them slowly vanished as Datavian worked the magic needed to send them to Winterspring, then he turned to the Archdruid.

"I will send you wherever you wish to go, but I suggest assisting the draenei first. They are sorely in need of assistance, and their mages will be able to move you across the world as needed."

Fandral once again glared at him for several breaths, then nodded curtly. He faded just as Darae and Felunian had, and once he was gone Datavian looked to Saliea.

The druid was crouched unsteadily on the bed, gazing at him warily.

"And what do I need to do, puppet master?" she asked, her sarcastic tone underlaid with one of caution, and maybe even fear.

Datavian once again reached into his cloth wrappings and pulled out a tiny vial full of a dark liquid. "You must go to Thunderbluff and cure Cairne and Thrall. Their people need their leadership." He tossed the vial to her, an object barely the size of her little finger; she caught it clumsily, shaking her head.

"What makes you think they'll even let me near them?"

"Thrall trusts you, and I imagine anyone with any claims on possessing a cure for their beloved leaders would at least be given a chance to try," Datavian replied. "Are you ready?"

"Of course I'm not," she sputtered, but Datavian was already casting and she too disappeared.

Three pieces moved into place...time to set up the rest of the board. Datavian flicked his fingers and teleported from the room.

* * *

Sevei was exhausted beyond reason but he stubbornly willed his limbs to continue to hold him upright and to swing his weapons. They had driven the greater bulk of the invading serpentine beasts back from the Exodar and were pressing them outward in an inverse pincher-like shape, back toward Azure Watch. They had received word that the civilians in Azure Watch had scattered to the hills and hidden themselves, and a very small force of Peacekeepers were holding there in the encampment.

He had, along with the other draenei among the Exodar's forces that had also begun their journey along the path of the shaman, had asked for whatever help the elements were willing to give...and they were willing to give quite a bit. A small army of elementals - wind, fire, earth, and even a few water elementals, rare to see outside of deep water - had answered their frantic pleas for help. They bolstered the ranks of the draenei's forces and filled in the gaps where slain or injured draenei had once stood.

A strong wind gusted at his back, pushing him forward as he continued to press along with the other fighters. It lightened the weight of his arms and made his swings come easier, and he gratefully thanked the element for its assistance. Another gust answered his thanks, and he realized that it was not simply a rejuvenating breeze but also carried the words of his teacher and guide Nobundo.

The words felt as though they had traveled eternity to reach him, and they were also tinged with great pain, but they were still clear enough to be heard.

'Call back the shaman. They are falling ill at an alarming rate.'

Calling the shaman back from the battle would greatly disadvantage the draenei forces...but if they continued to fall into a comatose state, that would be much the same problem as calling them back would be. Angrily Sevei slammed an ax into the skull of an attacker: what were they going to do? They needed help in a bad way.

'Ask in da right way, mon.'

The voice was a familiar one, but one he had not heard in weeks...in fact, Sevei hadn't heard any voices from the troll talisman around his neck recently. He had assumed it was because he was advancing well in his studies on his own, as they had refused to answer his questions just as readily as they had ignored any attempt of his to speak with them at all. Hearing one now, especially considering that it was Jakani himself who had spoken, was both exciting and alarming.

"How?" Sevei asked, panting. "Ask who?"

'Tink 'bout it. Wat ya been tryin' dis entire time?'

What had he been...? Did Jakani mean Sevei's attempts to summon a shield of earth, as he had once done under the direction of a troll ancestor? He had failed each time, only able to bring forth a messy glob of mud that was no good for anything other than getting exceptionally filthy. Was Jakani wanitng him to try that again? In the middle of a frantic battle?

'TINK mon. Dat was earth. Which element like ya best?'

The element that liked him best? Sevei wasn't aware of any-

'You're not stupid, shaman. Tink. Which one owes ya?'

Owed him?

Suddenly, like someone had seized him by the back of the head, his head was wrenched around and he found himself staring at the small lake and stream that ran alongside and under the road leading from the Exodar to Azure Watch.

Water...water! Water! He had saved a water elemental in Zangarmarsh years ago...was that what Jakani meant? Water owed him a favor? He wasn't even aware elements kept track of such things...was it true? And what was he supposed to do-

Wait. Water, and the fact that he had been trying to raise an armor of earth...

Sevei reached out to the water and felt it respond to him, almost laughing at him as it wondered at how long it had taken him to ask for its blessing and assistance. He wordlessly explained what he wanted to do, and asked if the water could help him do that...and received the answer of 'why just armor?'

What else could he do, Sevei wondered.

'Ask correctly,' came his reply.

"Water, please...grant me your blessing and your help," he said quietly. "Guide me..."

He felt as though the water nodded at him, satisfied, then his attention was once again drawn back to the lake and stream. Sevei reached out to it, wondering what the water could have in mind, and when the water showed him what to do he almost laughed at the simplicity of it.

The water in the lake and stream gathered together, emptying the lakes and swelling into a mountain of quivering liquid for one brief instant before it surged forward and crashed into the forces fighting below. Draenei were knocked from their feet but the serpent-beasts were picked up and carried along in the rush of water, the draenei left behind where they had fallen.

Sevei fought to hold the miniature tidal wave together, but water had no definitive form and he knew, as the wave spread out into a wider and wider semicircle, that he would soon run out of water and the wave would rapidly lose effectiveness.

But...that was okay. He had just bought the draenei forces valuable ground and time, and he had turned the ranks of the serpent-beasts into a crazed, jumbled mess that the draenei could fall upon and slaughter before they had a chance to recover. When Sevei sensed that the wave was effectively useless, he released the power and sagged to his knees, thanking the water for its assistance.

His fingers dug into the soft mud beneath him, then there were hands lifting him up from the ground. Soldiers were carrying him back from the fighting, and suddenly there was an imposing figure of a night elf standing before him.

Archdruid Staghelm stood before him, gazing at him impassively. Sevei raised one weary, muddied hand in greeting, and Fandral simply snorted.

"Go back to the Exodar and rest. I will handle things here."

Sevei swallowed hard. "There is...a portal, releasing these things-"

"I know-"

"-Lady Whisperwind closed the one in Darnassus-"

"-I know-"

"-and it nearly killed her," Sevei finished.

Fandral glared at him sourly. "I _know. _I shall be fine. I have something much better than Tyrande could ever hope to have."

"And what is that?" Sevei asked wearily.

Fandral's eyes glinted as he smiled grimly. "Me."


	8. Chapter 8

For a split instant Darae hung in the suddenly cold, biting air, then he fell a short distance and landed in snow that was nearly waist deep. He let out a whoosh of breath, watched it turn into a fine mist and then get blown away in the wind. His bare feet immediately began to go numb and he turned to see Felunian brushing snow from his shoulders, appearing completely at ease in the snow and the chill.

"We're here, I guess," Darae said, teeth beginning to chatter.

"Indeed," Felunian replied.

"I wish that...man...had told us how to find the blue dragons," Darae went on.

Felunian smiled slightly. "That won't be a problem." He pointed ahead of them, and over the whistle of the wind Darae heard wingbeats, and footsteps crunching through the snow.

Appearing out of the swirl of white flakes came six dragonkin followed by two juvenile blue dragons flying just above and behind them. The drakes crackled with energy and the dragonkin were all armored and armed with pikes, all of which were leveled at the two druids.

"Wait! Wait a minute!" Darae shouted at them, raising his hands. "Wait I- I was sent here, I'm supposed...I'm supposed to help a dragon! A green dragon!" At once he regretted not having a name for the green he was here to cure, for the dragonkin and drakes simply came in closer, menacing. "A green dragon!"

At once a bellowing roar split the air. The dragonkin and drakes immediately scattered to either side, and a fully matured blue dragon came swooping from the sky to land not ten feet from the druids, sending a wash of snow rushing over them.

"Oh, no," Darae moaned quietly, eyes on the gigantic blue.

The dragon flared its wings, flapped, and sent a massive blast of snow at Darae and Felunian; Darae shielded his eyes and gasped as his head and shoulders were covered in snow. A few seconds later he was brushing himself off and staring in amazement as, instead of the giant dragon there was a single tall, regal blue-eyed elf standing there in the snow glaring at them.

"What do you know of green dragons, boy?" the elf snapped. "What do you think you are doing within the domain of the blue dragons?"

Darae swallowed hard and looked back to Felunian; the elder druid simply motioned for him to speak, and so he turned back to the dragon-turned-elf and swallowed again. "I, uh...I was sent, to cure the, um, sick green dragon. That's...here, in Winterspring, somewhere," he stuttered, voice slowly fading into a squeak.

The elf pursed his lips, then sharply gestured to the surrounding dragonkin. "Bring them."

* * *

Datavian had returned from his 'meeting' with the night elves, and had freed them.

"You understand what must be done?" Datavian asked quietly.

Pit and Mikael, both now dry, armored, and armed with the gear taken from them at the moment of their capture, both nodded silently. Behind Datavian, clinging to his legs with one hand and clutching a book with the other, Leah peered at the two warlocks and smiled widely. Datavian had already explained that Mikael was her uncle, not her brother, but she'd remained stubborn in insisting on calling the blood elf 'big brother' and hadn't stopped smiling since the two males had been released from the pool.

Finally, Datavian dropped to one knee and pulled Leah in front of him, gently gripping her shoulders. "Leah, dear? Do you remember casting a portal spell for Daranara?"

She nodded several times. "Yes I do, Papa. Do I get to cast it again? It was fun."

Datavian chuckled and stood. "Yes, you get to cast it again. Right here," he said, pointing at their feet. "Can you do that?"

She nodded again and carefully put her book down on the floor between her feet, then meticulously cast a spell, the incantations sounding bizarre in her child-voice. Within a few moments a darkened, dim portal appeared; Mikael stepped forward and made to step into it when Datavian reached out and roughly stopped him.

"I'll be fine," Mikael grunted, trying to shrug his way free.

"Wait," Datavian insisted, tightening his grip. "You know I don't want you to do this..."

"And yet you know that I have to," Mikael replied.

Datavian nodded slowly, and removed his hand from his brother's shoulder. Mikael turned to leave again, and once again found Datavian's hand on his shoulder.

He spun around, then paused when he saw that Datavian held something out to him.

"I made a final stop when I was moving pieces into position," Datavian said quietly.

Mikael's hand closed firmly over the hilt of Spellcleaver, and Datavian stepped back to drape a hand over Leah's shoulders.

"Light protect you, brother," he said softly.

Mikael hefted Spellcleaver, fixing Datavian with a stare. "...Light preserve you, brother."

Datavian's smile became grim. "It has no reason to."

Without another look Mikael pulled away and leapt through the portal, which promptly closed behind him.

His brother gone, Datavian turned to Pit. "You should go, and hurry."

Pit snapped his goggles down over his eyes, adjusted a lens, then turned and sprinted for a seemingly solid rock wall. When he reached the wall he simply disappeared through it; when he was gone, Datavian turned back to Leah.

"Come dearest, we must-" His head snapped up as a familiar presence flooded his senses, and despite the surge of fear he felt he calmly turned to face his mistress. "I see I have been found out. I wondered how long before you turned your attention to me and discovered me."

Daranara stood not five feet away, trembling in a fury that Datavian could feel like a physical slap to the face. Inside his chest his heart wrenched and tore, but he had long been free of her influence - not entirely, but enough that he could resist her now.

"My dearest, my most trusted child..." she snarled.

Eyes narrowing, Datavian thrust Leah behind him. "Trusted? Please. All I've ever been to you is a puppet. A plaything. You seduced me in my youth, and when I realized the path of destruction beneath the poetic lies, you stole my soul and body and perverted them so I'd be the perfect servant. I've never meant anything to you...I was just a means to the end you wished to bestow upon Azeroth."

She slowly began pacing forward. "I gave you life, I gave you power. I wished for you to walk at my side in the garden I have prepared..."

He laughed, bitterly. "Garden...you have gone mad. Enough. There is no garden. There is no golden paradise. There is only death at the hands of Chaos."

She flinched at the name, then lunged for him. Datavian spun and seized Leah and threw her aside, Daranara slamming fully into him and the two falling to the ground in a tangle. Daranara was incredibly strong, clutching for his throat with fingers curled into claws. Somewhere off to the side Datavian heard a shriek. Leah.

He snarled a spell that pushed Daranara off just enough for him to roll free, then he clambered to his feet and spun to see a Forsaken woman, one of Daranara's mad followers that had somehow survived the green dragon's purging in the tree cavern, was backing Leah against a wall. HIS Leah, HIS daughter.

"Get away from her!"

Pushing aside his fear, he hurled a solid knot of flame at the Forsaken's back; it struck the woman's leather armor and smoldered, but it definitely got her attention. She whirled and drew two jagged, dirty daggers from her belt and leapt for him.

"Leah, run!"

"But-"

He sidestepped the Forsaken's charge and slammed a fist into the undead's shoulder. "Run, now! Go hide and don't come out until I or your uncle come looking for you!"

Finally she went running, disappearing through the same wall Pit had only moments ago. Several breaths after she had gone, Datavian reached for the rock wall and sent several bolts of arcane energy slamming into it; the wall collapsed, covering the hidden doorway. Now he turned to Daranara and the Forsaken woman, wondering what the hell he was going to do now, and knowing he had very little time to figure something out.

* * *

Saliea appeared, slightly disoriented, at the base of what appeared to be a giant rope lift. What had to be Thunderbluff towered over her, and she stared upward with the tiny vial digging into her palm, wondering how she could possibly get close enough to Thrall to help him.

Deciding she had little time to formulate a plan, she simply jumped onto the platform attached to the lift and rode it up, not at all surprised to see several tense Tauren guards guarding the walkway, though they certainly seemed surprised to see her.

They came for her, and she held up her hands.

"_Wait! Wait! I'm uh, I'm Saliea Silvermist! The, um, Cenarion druids sent me to help the Warchief!"_

The guards stopped and looked at her, their looks of surprise deepening to hear Orcish coming out of the mouth of a night elf. Saliea swallowed hard, inwardly berating herself for having sounded so dumb, but finally one tauren - a big, black male - stepped forward and studied her.

"_How does a night elf know the language of the orcs?"_

_ "I've met the Warchief before, and I'm here to help him now. The druids in Moonglade know of his affliction, they've sent me with what they hope is a cure." _

"_Show it to me. Show me this cure."_

Saliea held up the vial between her fingers, the guard leaning in to look at it doubtfully. After a moment the guard turned and called to the others in his own native tongue, apparently starting a heated discussion. The rope lift behind her descended and came back several times before finally the black-furred guard motioned to her.

"_We will take you to where Thrall rests, but if your cure does not work you will be imprisoned until we receive word of validity concerning your affiliation with the Cenarions."_

_ "Only fair," _she replied.

She stumbled a bit as she walked up to them, the black-furred guard motioning for her to follow him as he quickly plodded off. Saliea followed her guide, looking around at the animal hide tents and carved totems; Thunderbluff was simple in design yet quite impressive. They crossed a few rope bridges and then her guide gestured at the largest building she'd seen thus far.

"_He lays there."_

_ "I'll be fine on my own, if you wish to return to your post," _Saliea said when the tauren paused.

He nodded slowly, then shook his head and motioned for them to move on. He escorted her to the entrance of the building, then took his leave; Saliea was left standing in the doorway, staring in at the biggest group of tense tauren she'd ever seen. All were staring at her now, and she carefully bowed.

"_The Cenarions sent me with a possible cure for the Warchief," _she said, deciding to stick to her previous lie.

There was a scattering of murmurs, then a very tall female stood and motioned her forward. Saliea eased herself around the gathered tauren, and finally came upon where Thrall was laying on a heavily cushioned mat, being attended to by several tauren, and even a few trolls and other orcs. They glared at her suspiciously, but shuffled aside to give her room to kneel beside the Warchief, peeling back the bandages that covered his abdomen.

Saliea gasped slightly when she saw the gaping gut wound, then stared down at the tiny little vial she carried. This little amount of blood...for a wound that big? She was beginning to regret having trusted that bastard.

"_Could I have a bowl of fresh water?" _she asked, licking her lips. It was more to stall for time, to give her a moment to think about how she was going to stretch the pathetic amount of blood she had, but then...perhaps water would help. Maybe it didn't matter at the potency, just the surface area it could cover?

Someone shoved a small wooden bowl into her hands and she used a fingernail to pry the vial open, then tip its contents into the bowl. The water instantly took on a purple-red hue, and Saliea dipped her fingers in gingerly, then cupped her hand and began to dribble the water and blood down into the wound.

The black gunk hissed and smoked where it came into contact with the liquid, but with the silent onlookers watching, Saliea very slowly began cleansing the wound. It took what felt like several hours but in reality was only one, but soon the wound was bleeding normally and the black poison was gone. Saliea had just a tiny dribble of the water and blood mixture left in the bowl, but she carefully stood with her wet hand held over it, and moved from Thrall to Cairne. Cairne's little scratch was easily cleansed with the remainder of the blood, and finally Saliea handed the empty bowl to a nearby tauren and found a spot against the wall to stand back out of the way as those around Thrall surged to tend to him.

Cairne quickly recovered, opening his eyes barely minutes after Saliea had cleansed the poison. He sat up, ate and drank some, then immediately left - to lead his warriors no doubt, or so Saliea imagined. With Cairne gone some of the tauren in the room left as well, and Saliea found she was free to settle onto a cloth mat that had been vacated, a far more comfortable place to sit than against the wall.

For the most part she was left alone, ignored. Thrall would, much like she had, require several hours to even come awake, and now that their Warchief was cured the Horde seemed to care little for the druid in their midst that had brought this about.

She must have dozed off, for it seemed only moments later that Saliea found herself waking to someone shaking her shoulder. She was laying on her side, curled into a tight ball, but sat up quickly and tried blinking her vision clear. The first thing she saw was that Thrall was sitting up and looking at her; he looked rough, exhausted, but his bare chest showed little more than a faint scarring where his gut wound had been.

"_I am told you are the one who helped me," _he croaked, voice cracking with weariness.

She nodded silently, and he closed his eyes.

"_This seems to be twice now that you have saved my life," _he went on slowly. "_I'm beginning to wonder what it is you want from me."_

_ "Peace," _Saliea replied. She shuffled forward on the mat, settling on her knees. "_Warchief, there is a very large threat looming on the horizon, and I'm not speaking about the serpent beasts that are laying siege to every major populated city in Azeroth. They are a threat, granted, but it is their master we need to worry about. First, we need to close those gates those monsters are coming out of." _She clenched her hands in her lap, inhaling deeply. "_I was taken by the same poison. It saps your strength and your magic, and it channels it directly to those beasts, which in turn fuels their slaughtering spree."_

Thrall laboriously pushed himself to his knee, eyeing her. "_You are certain of this?"_

_ "I am, Warchief."_

_ "Then we go to battle," _he said, rising unsteadily to his feet. "_Bring me my armor and my weapon. Armor this druid, she rides at my side."_

* * *

Meraka read the missive handed to her by a very confused messenger, grinning fiercely and crumpling the thin parchment in her hand.

"Thrall is...well," she said to Vol'jin, glancing sideways at the messenger.

"Looks like da truth need ta get out, den," the troll replied.

Meraka nodded, then motioned the messenger in close; as the orc leaned in, she allowed her Thrall illusion to slip away, the messenger grunting in surprise. "Listen close, and spread it through the ranks. No, Warchief Thrall has not been here. He rode to Mulgore to bring the tauren in, in a pincer attack. We will crush the invaders between the forces. I am merely here to keep enemy attention here, instead of detecting the incoming forces early."

The orc nodded. "As you order, mage."

He moved off and Meraka turned to see Vol'jin staring at her. "What?"

"Ya better hope dat be da Warchief's plan."

"Whether it is or isn't, we still needed a reason for Thrall's absence," she said. She carefully uncrumpled the parchment, then retrieved a sharpened charcoal stick and quickly scribbled a note on the backside of it. "Actually, maybe it will be the plan," she added, casting a quick cantrip. The parchment folded up into a bird-like form, then flapped away into the air, disappearing against the sky quickly.

Vol'jin shook his head and chuckled. "Well, now wat, den?"

"I think it's high time I get a good look at that gateway that's spewing these things at us," she said grimly. She pulled out one of her enchanted feathers from a pouch on her belt and blew on it, activating the empowered levitation spell. "Don't wait up for me."

"Be careful," Vol'jin warned as she flew up, high above the fighting and out of Orgrimmar.

She soared high enough that the warriors below were as small as ants, then she flew out over the dusty, dry expanse of red clay that eventually turned into canyons. Midway between the canyon area and Orgrimmar itself, set into the ground as though it were some perverse part of it, was a wide, black gateway that spilled the serpentine attackers by the score every moment or so as Meraka watched.

"Now, how to close it," she muttered, studying it from where she hovered. She dropped her altitude some, coming down closer, casting a few spells of examination. The gateway itself exuded no magical energy, but there was something nearby that was literally oozing with it; whatever it was, it had noticed her presence there.

Meraka let the spells fade and dropped even lower, finally spotting the source of power: a giant specimen of the serpentine beasts, standing proudly, was gesturing in her direction and snarling. The orc threw a counterspell in the same instant, and the counter and the initial spell collided in midair and blew harmlessly into brilliant white smoke.

Meraka was already on the move, diving to ground and landing before the smoke had fully cleared. Her opponent, in his robe that looked suspiciously a lot like tanned skin from someone of his own race, was seeking her, and when he finally spied her he turned to the latest group of invaders and snarled at them, pointing her direction. Six serpent beasts sped for her, but she was already soaring up into the air and casting; at the end of her casting ribbons of arcane energy stretched from her to the large serpent beast briefly, then Meraka rocketed skyward.

"Hope you know how to fly," she grunted, releasing her spell and watching as the creature began to plummet.

Not surprisingly, the thing began his own spellcasting; giant, phantom-like wings sprouted from his back and he soared up toward her, fangs and claws flashing. She dropped in the air and let him fly by overhead, turning as she readied her next spell. She had never thought of attempting an aerial battle - one well-aimed spell could rob her of her levitation ability - but there was a first time for all things, she supposed.

Oddly enough, the challenge brought a smile to her face.

* * *

"_We cannot be close to the gate as it collapses," _Saliea warned, swinging the polearm she had with all the strength she could muster. The dulled blade on its end both cut and bruised the Hssriii'rhak she'd struck; a reversal of her grip brought it swinging around again to tear the beast's lower jaw off, which she followed up with a kick that sent the thing toppling to the side.

Thrall, despite his initial exhaustion and weakness, had been greatly bolstered by the spells of the druids and shaman that rode with them. He swung his hammer and shattered skulls left and right, but managed to nod in reply to Saliea's warning.

"_What do you propose we do?" _he asked finally, launching a volley of lightning bolts from the palm of one hand while he swung his hammer again with the other.

"_I...don't know. I don't know how we were supposed to close it," _Saliea answered.

"_We must get to it first, then worry about closing it then," _Thrall grunted.

With the Warchief among them the members of the Horde fighting in the fields of Mulgore surged forward with new hope and fervor, steadily gaining ground as they pushed the invaders from their lands. Thrall had cautioned all nature-magic users to remain at the back of the main force; Thrall and Saliea, having been cured of the black poison, seemed to have gained some sort of immunity to it, as they were both dotted with scratch and bite marks that oozed black gunk but neither felt any dizziness or ill effects - the poison was simply _there, _doing nothing. But just because Thrall and Saliea could not be effected by it didn't mean anyone else was safe, and Saliea had no more of her cure to give the tauren who worked to heal those who had fallen ill.

Saliea, uneasily perched upon the back of a white wolf that snapped at her feet as often as it bit at their foes, swung her polearm again and wondered what in the world they could possibly do once they located the gateway that was producing the Hssriii'rhak.

For several hours they fought tirelessly, pushing and pushing until finally Thrall shouted "_There!"_

And indeed, there ahead of them, where the mountains that ringed Mulgore split into an opening that connected the tauren's land to the Barrens, was the gateway. It lay in the exact center of that opening, spilling the Hssriii'rhak by the score out into Mulgore.

Thrall slowed his wolf mount, the orcs around him surging forward; Saliea directed her wolf up beside his, shaking her head.

"_Okay, we found it...now what?"_

_ "I'm not certain yet," _Thrall said grimly. "_It is large enough that circling around it is out of the question unless we use a mage to mass-teleport beyond it, or we fly over it. Either will be problematic."_

Saliea nodded. "_And again, we cannot be anywhere close to that thing when we figure out how to close it."_

Thrall nodded choppily, then abruptly turned his attention to a nearby orc, speaking in low tones that Saliea could not hear.

The Horde forces moved around them and continued fighting; Saliea studied the gate again, wondering how in the world they were going to close it. A mage probably could, but wouldn't that require being close enough to it? How close was close, anyhow? She wished now that she had asked Datavian to specify...what to do, what to do...

Her eyes roamed up the rock faces of the opening, wondering if perhaps they could surround the gate somehow and merely keep the invaders contained until a solution could be had-

She traced the path of a small rock as it fell from high up, bouncing from outcrop to outcrop until it finally struck the ground far below and nearly bounced its way to the base of the gate itself.

"_There is a possible leader amongst these beasts," _Thrall said then, interrupting her thoughts.

She blinked and shook her head. "_Where is he? ...it?" _she amended.

Thrall smiled grimly. "_On the far side of the portal, of course."_

Nodding absently, Saliea found herself staring at the rock again. For a moment she mused about how much damage - or, at least, how bad of a headache - a rock striking someone after falling from that height would do...

"_Warchief..."_ she said slowly. "_...would you be able to collapse that mountainside?"_

Thrall thought a moment, then nodded. "_Spirits willing, yes."_

_ "Try it. Drop that entire rock face on that gate."_

She watched as he closed his eyes, felt what seemed to be a slight tremor in the air, then heard a faint rumble. The rock face on either side of the opening above the gate began to tremble, smaller rocks shaking free and falling down.

Finally, Thrall's eyes opened once more and he wheeled his wolf around. "_It is done. Fall back! FALL BACK!"_

* * *

Pit ran through a seemingly endless maze of natural stone dotted with countless doorways and hallways, bypassing some while ducking into others. As he ran he could hear echoing footsteps, always behind him and never seeming to be moving closer...but they were there. He was being pursued by someone he could not see.

He at least was consoled by the fact he seemed to have some idea of where he was going; the crystal that was in his chest - and, having watched Datavian forcibly return it to him, he knew exactly where it was in relation to the rest of him - seemed to be acting as some sort of guide, giving him flickers of insight as to which door to ignore and which hall to turn down. He had been moving at a pace just below a sprint and hadn't seemed to have hit a wrong turn yet, so Pit was willing to trust his instincts - regardless of where they were coming from - and just move on with the business at hand.

Abruptly the floor beneath him heaved and he tripped, hitting the ground and rolling once before catching himself. He could feel strong vibrations rippling through the floor, and the feeling of pursuit suddenly doubled in intensity. Maybe the crystal within him was warning him as well as guiding him?

His suspicions confirmed themselves as he realized he could no longer hear footsteps coming for him. Whatever that...whatever had thrown him from his feet had done something to his pursuer, either by eliminating the person or helping the person disguise their pursuit. Whichever it ended up being, Pit needed to keep moving.

Pit heaved himself to his feet and started running again. Every hall looked identical to the last, each doorway a twin of every other doorway: heavy wood with dark stone that glinted despite the dim light, the source of which Pit hadn't been able to figure out just yet. He bypassed another six doors, then skid to a halt and paused outside of a seventh. Something about this one...

Inhaling deeply, he shouldered it open and nearly fell inside; he immediately had to reach up and flick down a filter on his goggles, staring up slack-jawed at what could only be the spell matrix Datavian had wanted him to destroy.

The damn thing was huge! At least three stories tall, towering over him with a base at least twenty feet in diameter. And it was made of magic of a high enough concentration that Pit felt his head beginning to hurt - even his _teeth_ began to ache in its presence.

The base was a slab of purely concentrated energy nearly a foot thick and spiraling up from that in ribbons so thin that, had he not put a light-filtering lens down, Pit might not have even seen them. They twisted in and over and through one another a ridiculous amount of times, a tight weaving that formed a rough outline of a...of a...

"_Giant...serpent..."_ he whispered. He immediately thought of the giant snake he and Mikael had faced years ago, and he shuddered.

A sinking feeling was beginning to overtake him. This thing was _gigantic._ Pit had no real knowledge of arcane beyond the basics...and his basic knowledge was currently telling him that the anchors and points of this matrix were securely grounded. He could see no weak point, no clue to lead him to a starting point to-

"_How in the nine hells do I destroy this thing?!"_

_ "You don't," _came a voice from behind him.

Pit spun, aware of two things at once. First, he realized that he'd walked toward the matrix without realizing it, and he was now quite a ways into the room. Second, a Forsaken female was standing in the doorway he'd entered a moment ago; she stood solidly, a long-bladed dagger gripped in each hand.

"_Filthy elf. Traitorous dog. Disgusting Horde."_

_ "Have you not looked at yourself recently?" _Pit responded, slowly back around the base of the matrix as the female advanced. "_You are as much a part of the Horde as I am."_

_ "I didn't used to be," _she snarled, advancing two steps for every one step Pit took. "_I was once human, I was proud to call Lordaeron my home. It makes me absolutely sick to see what that twice-damned undead bitch has done to my kingdom. I am not Horde, no, never Horde. The Horde is filth. Worthless. Full of liars, murderers, backstabbers, and traitors. Your leaders, those green-skinned godless beasts of orcs, ruined their world so they came to take ours. They kill and take without thought of consequence, they burned and stole from our towns, they killed our children and our men. Always take, and take, and when we finally have had enough of offering peace only to time and again receive nothing but pain and suffering at your hands, you throw our offers of peace back into our faces and call us liars and hypocrites. You have razed our cities, burned our farms, cut down our forests and killed our kings. I am not Horde. I hate the Horde."_

_ "Look. I don't know what that woman told you," _Pit interrupted, carefully skirting the base, feeling the hair on his head lifting and standing on end and waving in an unnatural air. "_She's evil and wanting to destroy Azeroth. Her goddess won't remake the world, she's going to devour it. Everything will die, including you. Including what's left of Lordaeron."_

She shook her head. "_I had a whole, human body once. I fought proudly for my king. I saw my king fall. I will be made whole once more in my service to Chaos. I have been promised. My own body, fit and pure, my enemies dead at my feet. Your worthless, destructive Horde will be wiped from the face of Azeroth."_

_ "She's LYING to you," _Pit insisted. "_The Horde and all its peoples aren't the only ones who will get wiped out. We will all DIE if you keep me from destroying this...thing, here," _he went on, gesturing to the towering monstrosity of a spell matrix.

The Forsaken woman stared at him silently for several long moments, then chuckled nastily. "_What do I care...for everyone else, then."_

Pit's eyes widened behind his goggles. "_What?"_

She lunged, rushing for him so quickly he was barely aware she had moved. He just managed to dodge the swing of both blades and stumbled aside as the female went past; she was immediately turning and tracking him, daggers flashing. One slashed by his face close enough that Pit could see the sickly green tint to the metal: poisoned.

He staggered back, amazingly uninjured thus far, and raised his hands to cast a spell. Out of nowhere seemingly the Forsaken's foot came up and slammed into his jaw; Pit felt every tooth in his mouth clack together and snip off the tip of his tongue even as he felt his jawbone itself crack. He fell and hit the floor hard, gasping and gurgling with a sudden mouthful of blood as he blindly scrabbled on hands and knees away, a few bits of broken teeth clattering to the floor in his wake.

Pit could feel his jaw hanging _wrong,_ it was agony to even think of closing his mouth; blankly, in pain, he stared at his clenched fists beneath him, his skin spattered with saliva and blood dripping liberally from his mouth. He knew he needed to turn and face the Forsaken or he would likely die here.

But he could no longer cast, and he could not fight her hand to hand. Mentally he was screaming for Sarxia, or Sloomyn, or _any_ of his servants. But, unlike Mikael, whose succubus seemed to come and go as she pleased, none of them could answer his mental summons: he needed to be able to speak the incantations to bring them to this plane.

To his credit he managed to slap away her first few attacks, but then she tangled her fingers into his robes and lifted him partially off the floor.

"_Return to whatever hell your Horde crawled from," _she hissed.

Pit gagged on her foul breath and shoved at her, but her grip was iron and he could only struggle as one of her blades came curving upward and buried itself to the hilt in his gut.

* * *

Staghelm strode ahead of the warriors, the soldiers, that flanked him; his feet sank to the ankle into the bloodstained earth beneath him, but he didn't care.

Gripped tightly in one hand was the dagger made of the yellow crystal. He still had no idea what exactly he was supposed to do with it, but he intended to find out. Sevei had more or less cleared the way for him to approach the gate - to either side of him the Exodar's forces fell on the tangle of Hssriii'rhak and slaughtered them like cattle. Inwardly Fandral flinched at every death, seeing Saliea in every face.

The only solution was to end this, and end it quickly.

He could feel, hear, and sense that the gate was near; it emitted a dull rushing noise, like standing beneath a waterfall, along with oozing a general sense of _wrongness_ that reached him through both his natural senses and those that were in tune with the environment around him. Once again Fandral looked to the dagger in his hand and shook his head. He had the feeling he would have but one try at this.

He held up his hand and stopped those with him. "Order everyone back. No one remains closer than I am now."

The fighters around him looked bewildered, but they knew better than to argue. Within moments Fandral found himself seemingly alone...and to his surprise, the Hssriii'rhak that he could see spilling from the gate were all ceasing their headlong rush at the Exodar forces, and instead were focusing solely on him.

Sensing that his chance was rapidly approaching, Fandral took advantage of their sudden hesitation. He jabbed the tip of the dagger into the pointer finger of his empty hand, then held the bleeding digit over the crystalline blade, counting as six drops of blood fell onto it. At once the blade began to glow a soft orange.

Feeling foolish and more than a little overexposed, Fandral thrust the dagger toward the Hssriii'rhak forces and their gate behind them.

"_Chaos!" _he snarled.

The blade flared to life, shattering into a thousand glimmering motes that hung in the air around him like a shroud for a brief moment, before taking on a deadly shine and tearing through the empty air to literally shred the stunned serpentine creatures. It was messy, sudden, and brutal; the glimmering motes turned the air surrounding the newly emerged creatures into a literal bladestorm - the air itself was slicing and rending flesh until little more than a pile of gore remained.

Then, the motes dripping black blood, they raced back and hit Fandral with such force that the druid was lifted from his feet and thrown back several yards to splash into the blood-tainted mud. Several draenei rushed to help him, but when Fandral sat up on his own they all drew back with wide-eyed stares.

Head throbbing, he went to climb to his feet, then caught a glimpse of his left arm. From fingertip to shoulder, almost to his neck really, was a wildly patterned...tattoo of sorts, black markings, adorning his skin. With a start he realized it was the blood and venom of the slain Hssriii'rhak, patterned up his arm like-

"Snake skin..." he whispered, more curious than alarmed. He flexed his marked arm: the markings didn't hurt, but neither did they seem to possess any sort of power at all. What they were, or how they could possibly help him, was lost to him. Where had that dagger gone? Maybe it would possess a clue...

The dagger itself was gone as well, not even a trace of it remaining where he'd been standing. Fandral pulled himself to his feet, still feeling his head throbbing in time with the beat of his heart. He looked up...and saw that the gate had spilled more Hssriii'rhak, but they were all watching him, shuffling aside to make room as more of their fellows appeared, but they were not attacking. The forces of the Exodar were still obeying his earlier order, none were standing further forward than the Archdruid - even now, as he'd been thrown back, they were still behind him. They too were not attacking, but they were so anxious Fandral swore he could taste their anxiety on the wind itself.

Suddenly, pain spiked through his head; with a grunt he grasped at his temples, his vision going blurry to the point of near blindness. As quickly as it had happened the pain spike was gone, and his vision refocused...but he saw, with a bubble of his own anxiety in the pit of his stomach, that his vision had changed.

Looking now at the Hssriii'rhak Fandral could see them in two different ways: some appeared to have a sickly green aura around them, while the others had a black corona lining their features.

'Unnatural,' he heard something in his mind whisper, as he looked at the black-glowing ones. 'Unnatural.'

"Unnatural?" he repeated, hardly aware of his action.

At once the green-aura bearing Hssriii'rhak all flinched, all seemed to perk up, their attention on Fandral honing itself to a razor-sharp point.

"The black ones, they are not natural. They are not right," he went on. "They should not be."

The words had barely left his mouth when the the green-aura bearers turned on their black-glowing brethren; the Hssriii'rhak forces degraded into a maddened, furious melee where they tore one another apart, green against black.

In an instant, he knew what the dagger had done: he bore the mark of their mad god. The black-glowing ones...those were the creatures created unnaturally, by the infected trees - young world trees, if his guess based on Saliea's description was correct - and were actually trapped souls of kidnapped Azeroth inhabitants. The Hssriii'rhak who carried the green-tinted aura were natural born creatures...actual Hssriii'rhak that had somehow crossed from their world to Azeroth. Fandral now wore the mark of their god, and they would obey him. They had been conditioned to obey their god for millennia.

Fandral watched them dismembering their unnatural "cousins" and he smiled grimly at the grisly sight, knowing he had only to wait. Finally, barely a score of the creatures remained, all of them green in his enhanced sight.

Fandral pointed his marked arm at them and they cowered, lowering their heads and hissing madly.

"Destroy this gate, and then yourselves. You do not belong here, nor do you have a way back home."

He watched as the creatures turned to tear the gate down with their bare claws. As soon as the gate collapsed he felt a rush of power collapsing inward toward it, felt it drawing at him and draining his strength...but with the mark of Chaos on his arm he was protected, he felt. The Hssriii'rhak creatures were torn apart in the rush of power, and seemed to shrivel and disappear into the wind.

And then, there was no sign of their invasion except for the piles of gore left behind by the slain.


	9. Chapter 9

Daranara looked to the Forsaken woman and nodded; the woman returned the nod, then simply faded from view. Datavian ground his teeth in frustration - had she cast an invisibility spell to attack him? Had she somehow left the room?

At the moment he had no time to consider those options, or his own for that matter, as Daranara was coming for him and he would stand no chance at all if he faced her one on one. She'd easily crush him, and while he had no intention of surviving the upcoming events, he wasn't ready to expire just yet. Not until he knew the entire mess had been straightened out.

He turned and sprinted for the collapsed doorway, then flicked his fingers before colliding with the fallen rock; he simply 'blinked' through the rock, appearing on the other side of the doorway - so close to the pile of rock that he actually appeared partially on top of it and had to quickly take a few steps to avoid toppling over, sending a scattering of rocks across the floor as he finally found solid ground.

With the Forsaken woman now part of the equation, he needed a new plan, and fast.

For now he simply needed time to think. He began to run.

* * *

Darae was sitting nervously in a tiny stone alcove, sealed into it by a glittering arcane wall, watching as the blue dragon - still in elven form - paced back and forth in front of him. The dragon had forbidden Darae to speak, on pain of death, and so Darae was definitely staying silent and wondering what he was supposed to do now. He had no idea where Felunian had been taken, they had been separated the moment they had been dragged into these caverns, so he couldn't hope for any help from the elder druid...not that he could have asked, being as he had been told not to speak until spoken to, but still, having the ancient druid with him would have been comforting at least.

"How did you know of the green dragon?" the blue dragon finally asked.

Darae jumped in surprise, having sat in silence for the better part of an hour. "I, uh, well, I was, um, told about him."

"By who?"

"A man. He was all in white cloth. He told me I needed to cure the poison in the green dragon. He gave the cure for it."

The blue walked up to the arcane wall, almost pressing his face in against it. "What is this cure? Show it to me now."

Darae cowered back into the alcove. "I can't. Not really...the cure is me. My blood, I mean."

"A pretty lie. What do you think you are playing at? You take me for a fool?"

"No, no I don't! I..." Darae ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. "I, listen. The man told me things. There's a goddess, an evil one that's insane, trying to come to Azeroth to destroy everything. This poison is part of it...the god's plan, I mean. Her servant, she's been killing and causing problems. She's tainted a lot of arcane power with her goddess's blessing, and even made a disease to infect people with a crystal that makes them really strong with magic."

As he spoke he could see the doubting look grow in the dragon-turned-elf's eyes...until he mentioned the tainted arcane and the crystal. Instantly the dragon's expression grew grim but focused.

"Tainted arcane...and tainted people. Tell me of this."

"I don't know a lot about it...I don't remember exactly what he said, but there's this goddess's blessing, and magics...and the Nightmare! She used some of the power siphoned from the Nightmare as well. I don't know what it all was supposed to do, but she's infected someone with it and it made them really powerful! And if they die, the...um, they'll release a lot of energy, enough so that the portal needed to let the mad goddess through will be created, and-"

"Enough!" the dragon snapped, his look of seriousness vanishing. "This is all foolishness. Gods and blood and nightmares...ridiculous! Your mind is obviously addled, you sound like a babbling child!"

"Because I am one!" Darae snapped, then swallowed hard when he received a glare in return. "I, uh, I am. A boy, still. I might not look like one, but I am. That man in white magically aged me...I hate it. I don't want to be this old looking. I look like an adult when I shouldn't be."

The blue let out a disbelieving snort. "Right. And how old _would_ you be, exactly?"

"Barely sixteen summers," Darae replied.

The dragon snapped his fingers and the wall disappeared, and Darae found himself hauled bodily out of the alcove and dragged along by the arm. There was still snow beneath his feet but oddly it didn't feel cold anymore, or wet...a good thing, really, as Darae was still shivering from his first plunge into the snow. Inside the cavern, out of the wind, it was almost tolerable, but even if the snow wasn't cold the air certainly was. He shivered as he was dragged along, through a narrowed opening in the rock and into another larger cavern.

Upon entering it he felt as though he'd been struck in the face with a heat wave - the cavern was very warm, and well-lit with firelight. There wasn't any snow in here either, just bare rock for the floor; Darae was shoved roughly forward, and the door behind them sealed with another glittery arcane wall.

Darae stumbled, recovered, then gasped in surprise when he realized that there, against the far wall, was a pallet of heavy blankets next to a roaring, enchanted fire. On the pallet was a single moaning figure, someone who was constantly twitching, flinching...writhing in pain. A man, by the looks of it.

Darae looked back to the blue dragon; the blue's face was stern, grim, and he gestured forward at the figure.

"Well then, there lays your green dragon. Let's see you cure him. Prove your story, night elf."

Nodding dazedly, Darae slowly stepped forward to the groaning man on the pallet. As he got closer he could see it was a night elf male, sweat-soaked and wearing little more than a massive bandage wrapped from neck to waist...and, for whatever reason, a blindfold on his-

"Oh, oh no. Pathora," Darae said quietly, eyes widening as he recognized him.

Pathora didn't appear to hear him, didn't pay him any attention at all. He lay on the blankets, constantly writhing, his features arranged in such an expression of pain that Darae actually felt slightly sick to his stomach. He knelt quietly at the ailing dragon's side, carefully reaching out to begin the long task of unwrapping the thick bandages covering the male.

Finally, he really DID become nearly ill when he uncovered the hole that went completely through the green, and the entire thing clogged with congealed ichor and strands of the black poison.

"How did they think I could heal this..." he murmured. "How did he SURVIVE this?"

"Well?" the blue called impatiently from where he still stood by the door.

"I, um. I need a knife. I have to cut myself, so I'll bleed," Darae called back.

The blue dragon gestured and, out of the air itself, conjured what looked like an icicle, then threw it at him. Darae pulled his foot out of the way and the icicle hit the blankets with a softened thud.

He picked it up and winced as he felt how cold it was, but it was sharp. Gritting his teeth, he ran the sharpest edge of it across all four fingers of his left hand, then began to shake the drops of blood into the hole through the green. As before, the black poison hissed and smoked where the blood touched it; Darae began to wonder how much he'd actually have to bleed in order to clean this wound.

And after he'd cleaned it, then what?

It was slow going, with Darae having to repeatedly slice new cuts on his hand open, or reopen the original cut he'd made, as his injuries slowly clotted. Finally, with Darae feeling more than a little lightheaded, he believed he had cleaned all of the poison from the wound...now it was just a matter of healing it, which he didn't believe he had even the slightest chance of doing.

Suddenly, he realized he was laying down beside Pathora, with no recollection of how he'd gotten there. Hands lifted him back into a sitting position; he looked, woozily, up into the face of the nameless blue dragon, as the other helped him up and away from Pathora.

"Sit here, and do not move."

Darae nodded, feeling rather dizzy; he sank down against the wall where the blue deposited him, putting his head between his knees and trying not to fall over.

* * *

Darae woke later to Felunian bending over him, the elder druid carefully examining the youth's cut fingers. They'd been bandaged at some point - Darae didn't recall anyone doing so - and Felunian was unwrapping them and brushing green-glowing fingers across the scabbed-over slices.

"Are you all right, Darae?" he asked quietly.

Darae nodded in reply, sitting up straighter. He was still where he had slumped earlier, but someone had also tossed a blanket over him; it fell in sloppy folds around him as he carefully climbed to his knees, immediately looking to where Pathora had been on the pallet of blankets.

The pallet was empty; Darae looked up at Felunian, who simply shrugged at him.

"They brought me to him to heal him, and once I had he simply stood up as though nothing were amiss and left with the blue dragon. I have been waiting for you to wake for the last half hour or so, if my estimate of the time's passing is correct." He shifted, settling down against the wall and draping his arms across his legs. "I have spoken with the blue dragons at length since our...capture, and have told them everything we know of this Daranara and her goddess of Chaos."

Darae's stomach growled audibly then, and he laughed weakly. "I want to go home."

But he couldn't go home, not yet. He had a trip into the Emerald Dream to make; thinking of it made his stomach stop growling and instead twist in fear.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," Darae went on quietly. "I don't know how I'm supposed to destroy the, well, thing. I don't know what it looks like, even...what do I do?"

"Trust in yourself, Darae. You will know what to do when the time comes."

"How can you say that though?" Darae groaned. "I just LOOK grown up, how am I supposed to know all this stuff? I want to go home..."

Felunian placed an arm around him and patted his shoulders. "Everyone must grow up sometime, Darae. But growing up doesn't mean you stop being a child...you just realize that there are times when one must be an adult, and where being a child is okay. Part of growing up is also realizing that you're going to make mistakes - the only way to learn is to try. If you do not know something, and no one else has an answer for you, then you must go and find it on your own. That man obviously had faith in you, or he would not have placed his trust in you. Age means little, more times than you think."

"I don't think I can do this," Darae insisted. "Faith in me or not, if I can't destroy the thing then it doesn't mean a lot."

"You will not know until you try," Felunian said with a chuckle, removing his arm from Darae's shoulders and clasping his hands together around his knees. "That is all you can do."

"That's not very encouraging."

"But it is the truth."

Both druids looked up as there was motion beyond the arcane wall; the wall dropped away and both the blue dragon and Pathora walked in. Aside from the large tear in the dragon's armor Pathora looked just fine - he was walking and moving like he hadn't had a gaping hole bored through him just a short while ago.

"So. I am told my recovery is owed to you," Pathora said, looking down at where Darae knelt. "I am also told you are the same boy I knew not too long ago. It would seem you are a boy no longer."

"I wasn't given a choice, someone did this to me," Darae said dully. "I wouldn't have wanted it even if I HAD been given a choice."

"Understandable. Now. Tell me what it is you require of me. Avlen was none too clear."

"Probably because I don't know myself," the blue - Avlen - replied dryly.

"We - well, I - have to ride you into the Emerald Dream, and destroy something that's hidden inside a fake Nightmare."

Both dragons stared at Darae blankly, and the boy sighed heavily. "I know it sounds dumb, but it's the truth."

Pathora shrugged. "It all sounds rather suspect to me. But as you have cured the madness and illness that was taking over my mind and body, I am willing to believe your claim. We will need to go outdoors."

"Why outside?" Darae asked, wincing as he thought of the freezing wind and snow again.

Pathora snorted and pointedly 'looked' around at the room they were in. "Do you honestly think a fully grown dragon could fit in here?"

"Oh, right..."

Darae stood and walked across the room, then turned around when he realized Felunian was not with him.

Felunian made a shooing motion. "It is your task, not mine. I cannot come with you."

"Why not?"

"Because the only one who can enter the phantom Nightmare is you, Darae. Be careful, and good luck."

Feeling utterly alone, Darae sighed and turned back to the dragons. Pathora nodded to him, gestured for him to follow, then spun on his heel and led the way back out into the frigid cold. Darae stood in the very mouth of the cavern complex shivering as Pathora changed into his dragon form, then he hurried through the snow and scrambled awkwardly up onto Pathora's back.

"Hook your feet beneath the scale and hang on," the dragon warned.

Pathora sent snow scattering everywhere as he down-stroked and lifted into the air; Darae felt his fingers and toes go instantly numb as air whooshed by as the dragon beneath him winged higher into the sky. Finally, Darae felt as the world itself was shifting and fading from view; for a brief moment he could even see through his dragon 'mount' and feared he'd fall, but his phasing form soon caught up to that of Pathora's, and now Darae was staring around them at the verdant greenery of the Emerald Dream.

"How do we find this phantom Nightmare?" Pathora called over his shoulder as he continued to fly straight ahead.

"I don't know," Darae yelled back. "I'm not sure what was meant by it all. It's something that looks like the Nightmare, but isn't, I think. I don't know how to find it."

"So the likelihood of you knowing the true Nightmare from the fake one is slim?"

"Uh...maybe?"

The dragon snorted, his entire body rumbling under Darae. "That's promising. Whoever sent you on this...errand. Is a fool." The dragon banked and began drifting left. "Let us begin searching for your fake Nightmare."

* * *

The spell struck his protective shield with enough force that it sent him flying from his feet to crash into the wall, then to the floor, where he rolled for several yards before coming to a stop flat on his back. Datavian could feel his head spinning but nothing seemed overly broken or injured - nothing beyond what she'd already inflicted on him, and thankfully he was somewhat immune to most pain thanks to all the years of torment he'd suffered at her hands.

"Killing me will solve nothing," he gasped, rolling to his knees and pushing himself to his feet. Behind him he could hear Daranara's footsteps approaching, rapidly. "I have set events in motion that you cannot stop. Your downfall is unavoidable, unpreventable, though you are certainly welcome to try."

"How could you do this to me?!" she shrieked at him then.

He ducked instinctively and felt the heat of a spell fly overhead, disappearing down the straight hallway. Spinning, he threw up another shield and was sent skidding backward as another spell struck it. "It's no more than you deserve, monster."

She shrieked wordlessly and hurled another barrage of black arcane bolts at him. They struck his shield and ricocheted harmlessly to each side of him, but he was already turning to run again.

"You know," he grunted, mentally strengthening the magical shield around him, "instead of chasing me you should probably be checking up on your scaly little pets. Thrall should be free by now, and that was a substantial source of power, not to mention he's the leader of the orcs and his loss would have been a disastrous blow to their morale."

"You lie you lie _YOU LIE_!"

"Now, really, would I lie to you?" he laughed bitterly from over his shoulder. "If you don't believe me, just take a look yourself!"

Instantly he regretted taunting her, as he felt a crushing pressure form behind him. Whatever magic she threw at him this time shattered his shield and sent him flopping along on the floor like a child's rag doll; he was gasping for air and in such pain that it seemed as though the floor beneath him was rippling like water. Dazed, he looked up in time to see Daranara disappear in a flash of crimson light.

Inwardly, he wondered if he had not just doomed Thrall and the little druid woman...he held faith in both of their abilities. They likely had no chance to defeat Daranara, but surely they could keep themselves alive long enough for the rest of the pieces to fall into place.

He felt a jab in his stomach and a surge of panic so intense it further worsened the disorientation he was experiencing. Several moments passed before he could, with the help of the nearby wall, pull himself to his feet and sort through the maelstrom of thoughts running through his head. First and foremost was anxiety for Leah, and then it would seem the blood elf would need his help.

* * *

Fandral had a problem. A fairly large one.

The mark of Chaos upon his skin had given him the ability to see the Hssriii'rhak in a new way...namely, he could tell the true creatures from the unnaturally created ones. Furthermore, the natural ones obeyed him; they had destroyed their unnatural brethren, then had destroyed their portal and had subsequently been destroyed themselves by its collapse.

At the time of the closing of the first portal, Fandral hadn't felt any different beyond a minor draining of his stamina. He had returned with the draenei to the Exodar, sought a mage and ordered a portal open to Ironforge; the mage had obeyed and Fandral, along with the mage and a small group of draenei warriors - as many as could go through the mage's portal - had arrived in Ironforge to find the dwarves easily defending their mountain home.

At some point, during his walk through the dwarven city - and how claustrophobic, sweltering, and _dim_ it was - a headache had been forming just behind his eyes. The closer he drew to the gates of Ironforge, the worse it became; finally, his eyes were watering as he sought to ignore the pain that threatened to seemingly split his head in two. The powdery snow just outside of the gates made his feet go numb, but standing just outside Ironforge gave him a clear view of the gateway spewing Hssriii'rhak just down the road leading from the city.

"Come, we-we must..."

The dwarves flanking him, including Magni himself, looked up in alarm as the Archdruid both stuttered and stumbled.

"Are ye alright?" Magni asked, moving as though to reach out for him.

Fandral held up a hand, squeezing his eyes shut. "I'm fine, I just...need to get closer. And quickly."

"Open us up a path, lads," Magni ordered.

Their escort broke formation and arranged themselves in front of their king and the Archdruid, then began their march down the road toward the battle raging between the dwarves and the serpentine Hssriii'rhak.

"S-stay here," Fandral ordered once they had moved close enough so that he could see the fighters clearly...or clearly enough, as his vision was beginning to blur as he fought back against the raging headache.

"But-"

"Stay here," he repeated.

With expressions ranging from amazement to worry, the dwarves allowed him to walk forward into the melee, unarmed and unescorted. Fandral could already feel the attention of the creatures shifting his way. Adding to the pain caused by the headache, the marks on his arm were beginning to burn as well...beginning as a slow, deep itch that was quickly intensifying.

When he felt he had most of their attention, he stood still - swaying on his feet as he fought to hold on to consciousness.

"Stop," he ordered, in a low voice tinged with pain.

Instantly the Hssriii'rhak ceased fighting, the dwarves quickly cutting them to pieces.

Fandral closed his eyes as a wave of nausea hit him. "The portal. Destroy it."

In unison the Hssriii'rhak broke away from the dwarves and scrambled back for their portal; Fandral didn't see it, as he was suddenly facedown in the powdery snow with no recollection of having fallen. He managed to turn his face from the snow as the dwarven fighters closed ranks to protect him - against what was uncertain, as all of the Hssriii'rhak were now more concerned with destroying their portal than they were in further slaughter.

The Archdruid could see that the mark of Chaos was flowing off him like spilled ink, staining the snow around him with an oily black smudge. For a brief moment he wondered - with some degree of alarm - whether he was laying in a puddle of the black poison, but then the dwarves were hefting him and slinging him over shoulders, supporting him with ice-cold gauntlet-encased hands, hurrying him back toward Ironforge as fast as their stubby little legs could carry them.

All Fandral Staghelm could think about, however, was the loss of the mark of Chaos: he'd been unable to...contain it? Carry it? It had not remained on him long enough to close all of the portals...Stormwind would still be under siege.

With as much coherence as he could muster, he tried to communicate this to the dwarves carrying him. He couldn't be certain they actually understood him, but he also could no longer keep himself conscious; Fandral spiraled into a quiet darkness.

* * *

Datavian burst into Leah's room breathlessly, eyes quickly scanning the room for any sign of his daughter.

She was there. And so was Daranara. Datavian narrowed his eyes and felt a rage so keen he wondered that it didn't burn him alive, glaring at the woman that held his daughter nearly dangling off the floor in an iron grip, Leah awkwardly standing on her tiptoes with her right arm grasped just beneath the armpit.

Daranara actually seemed surprised to see him standing; her eyes widened and she quickly raised a hand to throw a spell at him. Datavian had his counterspell ready, but then Daranara hissed loudly.

"Chaos..." she snarled.

With a snap of her fingers, she and Leah simply disappeared; Datavian, having flung himself at them in a desperate attempt to snatch his daughter free, slammed into the now-empty floor on hands and knees, swearing and nearly sobbing.

She'd left and taken Leah with her. She was going after his brother, and there was nothing Datavian could do about it.

* * *

There were darting shapes among the stunted trees.

Mikael knew this for a fact. He'd found the fresh footprints, he'd heard the splash of movement; all of it happening just out of the corner of his eyes - he'd turn to look and find nothing until he went to investigate, and then he'd find the prints and heard the noises. It now felt like the entire world had sucked in a breath and held it, waiting...

The Hssriii'rhak had not shown themselves, but he knew, somewhere, that they were here. This was one of the pocket dimensions that Daranara kept them in, supposedly a mirror of the world the Hssriii'rhak and Effesoa had actually lived on long ago. The ground beneath his boots was marshy and dank, and the air was hot and damp; the trees were scraggly and dark, as was the sky above them.

"Come on out!" Mikael shouted into the gloom. "I know you're here, somewhere! Watching me like the cowards you are! Are you honestly frightened of me? If you're scared of me you wouldn't stand a chance on Azeroth!"

There was nothing but the echoes of his own voice and yet another soft splash from his unseen followers. He swore and kicked at the muck beneath his feet; it would take more time than he had to find these, he was certain of it, and yet -

Mikael spun and brought up Spellcleaver, stopping the tip of the blade a hair's breadth from the throat of one of the serpentine beasts that had, seemingly, appeared behind him from thin air.

This was an odd-looking one. It wore a collection of rags that looked more like cured hides from one of its own species, and its scales were dulled and scratched; there even appeared to be bald patches of scale on the creatures body.

It flared its nostrils at him, hissing between its teeth quietly. Mikael kept his swordpoint on it, but there were suddenly dozens of the creatures appearing from behind trees, rocks, and even out of the deep, swampy mudholes he'd done his best to avoid. Hssriii'rhak were in fact still within this little pocket dimension – he was beginning to wonder if he'd been sent to one Daranara had emptied, by mistake.

"So much as flick your tongue at me, and you're dead," Mikael growled. The thing probably wouldn't understand him, but he felt he needed to at least attempt to warn it first.

Mikael found himself fighting to keep his anxiety under control as the creatures formed a ring around him and pressed in closer.

"Stop, don't come any closer," he finally snapped.

Surprisingly, they did. About three score of them stood around him, shifting and shuffling, mud dripping off them as they stood and silently stared at him. He let his gaze wander briefly around the ring of creatures, then he looked back at the one he held at swordpoint.

It stared back, almost serenely. Again, it flared its nostrils at him, and hissed...but this time Mikael swore he heard language beneath the rush of air.

"_Agreement. Free."_

Mikael simply looked at it, unsure of having heard anything. Once more the Hssriii'rhak hissed at him, 'agreement' and 'free' beneath the noise.

"The agreement?" he repeated. The creature snorted but did little else. "What agreement?"

"_Free."_

Mikael studied the creature silently; he knew, based on what Datavian had told him, that some of these creatures, somehow, were genuinely Hssriii'rhak from their destroyed homeworld. Daranara had somehow brought some of the last survivors of that race with her, and had used them to breed others by stealing the sleeping inhabitants of Azeroth.

"An agreement...for freedom?"

Again, a snort.

"I have to destroy something," Mikael repeated. "It's hidden. You help me find it, and then I don't care what you do so long as you never enter my world."

"_Free."_

"Yes, you'll be free," Mikael replied. "If you had to hide something here, where would you hide it?"

The Hssriii'rhak's eyes drifted down to where Spellcleaver was still at its throat. "_Move."_

"You won't attack?"

"_Move."_

Slowly, carefully, and with great misgivings, Mikael lowered Spellcleaver. The Hssriii'rhak shook himself like a dog, then knelt down and dug his fingers deeply into the mud beneath their feet. "_Hide. Warren."_

"...it's underground?" Mikael asked then, resisting the urge to punt the creature out of annoyance - not annoyance at the Hssriii'rhak itself, but at the situation.

"_Warren. Come."_

"You want me to follow you?"

The thing hissed loudly, stuttering and sputtering, and after a moment Mikael realized he was being laughed at. "_Come. Fight. Kill."_

"What is it you want from me? I don't understand," Mikael sighed...then the earth beneath his feet began to vibrate.

The intensity increased exponentially, until Mikael was fighting to keep on his feet in the slick muck; fifty yards away the ground buckled, bulged upward, then exploded skyward in a geyser of mud and water. Bursting from the midst of the raining gunk came a huge face - scaled in brilliant scarlet, with acid-green eyes and bizarre, almost human-like features framed on either side with a black scaly frill. Three forked tongues slid from between its lips to lick the mud from its chin; beneath the head, a powerful, muscular body propelled the head higher into the sky, yards and yards of snake tail that was covered in the same scarlet scale as the head with the occasional emerald green scale here and there, all of it glinting dully in the light.

"Chaos, I'm assuming," Mikael said quietly, watching as the gargantuan snake continued to rise higher and higher - was there even an end to the thing's massive body? To all appearances it looked like half of it was still underground, and there was enough above it to coil around the entire Cathedral of Light!

The rag-wearing Hssriii'rhak let out a whistling whoosh of air. "_Fight. Kill. Yoekai'rhak."_

Mikael looked at it incredulously. "You're wanting me to kill that? _That?!"_

It stared back, a slim tongue darting out briefly. "_Agreement. Kill. Yoekai'rhak"_

"I thought the agreement was you all went free, nothing was ever stated about killing a mad goddess," Mikael insisted, backing away as his attention was drawn back to the towering serpent-god.

Somehow, not only had Daranara been able to bring Hssriii'rhak to this world, she'd somehow brought along a shade of her goddess – perhaps this was the source of power and knowledge the woman has used to breed Hssriii'rhak and infect him with the crystalline seed.

The shade of Chaos seemed to be surveying her world, swaying back and forth as she continued to work even more of her body free from the hole in the ground. At this distance, seeing Chaos' size, Mikael had no intention of getting closer to find out just _how _big the goddess actually was. Based on his run-in with a giant worm-like demon in Nagrand, he also harbored no illusions of thinking he could actually take on something of this size - he couldn't even really do harm to the demon, the odds of him even putting a scuff on a single scale on this goddess, even if it really was just a shade of the actual thing, were pathetically slim.

The Hssriii'rhak were swaying gently where they stood, hissing "Yoekai'rhak" over and over. Was this the name they called Chaos?

"Um, all right, uh, look," Mikael went on in a rush, "Yoekai'rhak's" attention slowly drifting down toward him. "You help me get underground and find this...thing...and I'll destroy it and then see what I can do about killing your really...big...angry...goddess," he finished, his voice trailing off to barely above a whisper as he felt the full force of Yoekai'rhak's full attention on him. "But not until I've done what I came here to do."

"_Agreed."_

With a speed that surprised Mikael - after all, this Hssriii'rhak looked, well, ancient, compared to the others - the Hssriii'rhak seized his arm and, while turning, slung it over its back. Mikael stumbled forward, awkwardly pulled into a piggy-back-like position, but before he could protest the Hssriii'rhak began to run. Several moments passed before Mikael managed to get his other arm around the Hssriii'rhak's shoulders to clasp his hands just below the creature's throat; that done, he found he could pull his legs up and press his knees into a hollow between the bottom of the ribcage and the bony hips of his impromptu mount and keep his toes from dragging on the ground.

Once Mikael was settled, the Hssriii'rhak dropped to all fours and began to all-out sprint - Mikael found himself tightening his grip out of fear from being thrown off thanks to the creature's weird gait. He glanced over his shoulder, to check on where Yoekai'rhak was, and instantly regretted it.

The serpent goddess was further pulling her massive bulk free from the ground, and she had fixed her attention fully on Mikael and the Hssriii'rhak carrying him; she was beginning to move their way, even as the rest of the Hssriii'rhak that had gathered around took up flanking positions as they ran with Mikael.

He turned back to face forward, leaned up some so he was sitting more like he was riding a horse - _why _had this thing picked him up? - and honestly began to pray to anything that might have been listening.

* * *

"There!"

Darae had shouted, but it was obvious Pathora had already seen it. There, before them, was a tall cloud formation; dark, gray, and gloomy, it towered over the verdant green of the Dream.

"Yes, young one," Pathora replied. "That is the Nightmare." He dipped a wing and banked to the side, sending them into a lazy spiral that carried them higher while still keeping a healthy distance from the Nightmare. "But is it the true Nightmare? Or the fake one you seek?"

"I don't know, can't you tell?" Darae asked.

The dragon shook his head. "No. It feels much the same to my senses as it always has. But if the item you must destroy is within it..."

"I'm going to have to go inside it if we can't tell from here," Darae said quietly.

"That will doom you, druid."

"Well, if I can't find the crystal and destroy it, it'll doom everyone else on Azeroth," he replied.

The dragon rumbled beneath him, an uneasy sound, then he began to glide down; he landed lightly and dipped his shoulder so Darae did not have so far to slide down to reach the ground. Now on his own two feet, Darae stood next to a head that was as big as he was tall; Darae stared into Pathora's eye a moment, then inhaled deeply.

"I have to at least try. Everyone is counting on me," the boy said, exhaling noisily.

"Are you certain this is what you wish?"

Darae leaned briefly against Pathora's side, then pushed away and nodded, biting at his lower lip. "Yeah. I have to do this."

"Good luck. May this be the phantom Nightmare you seek."

Nodding silently, Darae began to slowly walk away from the dragon. He felt a whoosh of air against his back as the green took to the air again; little wonder, honestly. It would be a terrible thing for the dragon to become caught within the Nightmare, and the Nightmare's movements were known to shift randomly. In the air Pathora would likely be able to both detect and get away from any chaotic changes in the Nightmare's movement.

Darae stopped and stood still a moment, watching as the clouds moved closer. This was either the real Nightmare or the fake one, this was something that would either help those outside the Dream or damn him completely...and he wouldn't know until he walked into it.

And once he was inside it, what then? He had no way of knowing how big the inside of the Nightmare was, nor did he know how to locate the crystal he had to destroy.

He felt a sudden nudging at the backs of his knees; whirling around, Darae looked down in surprise to see a big gray wolf pushing its head into his legs. It was the same wolf he vaguely recalled seeing once before, in the hallway where he had been trying to prevent Tal'Thera's kidnapping while his mother and Pathora had dealt with a room full of cultists. He hadn't seen much of the wolf since then, and honestly had wondered if it hadn't been a hallucination, but...here it was.

"What are you doing here? What do you want?"

The wolf sat down, staring up at him evenly. 'Are you a coward?'

"...no, I'm not a coward. I'm just not wanting to go in there and die because I made the wrong choice," Darae replied after a moment.

'Then go.'

"What if this is the wrong one though?"

'Then it is wrong. Are you a coward, or aren't you? You can't fear mistakes.'

"No, but I can be afraid of dying," Darae growled. "If you're so dead set on it, then _you_ go in."

'Very well. Follow me.'

The wolf shoved by him and darted off, sprinting ahead and disappearing without hesitation into the shifting clouds of the Nightmare. Inhaling deeply, Darae followed.

Instantly his surroundings went dim, and he felt such an apathy descend upon him that he wanted to just drop to his knees and let the entire storm wash over him. He couldn't see any sign of the wolf at all, just withered vegetation and an overcast sky with clouds hanging so low Darae felt he could bang his head against them if he jumped.

A wind blew against his face, bringing the sickeningly sweet smell of rotting vegetation...and also, the faintest hint of a low howling in the distance. He could stand here and wait and see what had made the sound, or he could try to find both the wolf he'd followed in here and the crystal he'd been sent to find.

Figuring he was damned either way, Darae began to plod his way forward, hand over his mouth, as he sought either the source of the howling or the vial he was sent to destroy. Finding either seemed highly unlikely.

* * *

Varian Wrynn fought, flanked on either side with his Royal Guard, just outside of the gates of Stormwind. He had quickly caught on to the fact that these creatures, these reptilian beasts, seemed to have no intention of actually getting inside Stormwind. Instead, they seemed content to slowly chisel away at his forces, killing quickly then moving on to another opponent. Why they were doing this he didn't know, but the fact remained that they either didn't understand that they could climb the mountains and use them to get over the city's walls, or they just didn't want to.

King Wrynn had quickly switched tactics once he had realized this: he had assigned mages to battalions of soldiers, ordering them to teleport outside the city walls and protect the people that remained outside of Stormwind's walls. He had already received reports that most of those who dwelled in Goldshire were gone, either dead or having fled into Northshire or Westbrook Garrison. Beyond those places he had heard nothing, and he intended to change that.

One of his Royal Guard took a hard hit and stumbled back, ducking quickly enough that one of the beast's strikes only tore her helmet off, revealing red hair in tight braids. Varian caught the helmet one-handed even as he brought his sword down in an arc that severed the attacker's arm.

"Would you hold on to this for once, Townguard, please?" he quipped, tossing the helmet back to the woman.

Townguard grinned and caught it, jamming it back on her head before quickly bringing a one-handed mace up to parry an attack. "As you order, my king."

Varian let a wry grin cross his face briefly as he turned back to the melee even though the smile faded a moment after. Behind them, lining the walls, were the battlemages covering them with powerful spells; their magics rained down on those creatures that were further out, and even though quite a pile of dead bodies were forming it wasn't deterring the others from rushing over them to close in on the king and his forces.

Behind the mages were further magic users, all of them trying to determine where these beasts had come from. For now, all Varian could do was lead his forces in defense of Stormwind and hope that someone would discover a way to end this bizarre siege. Inwardly he worried at how long his men could hold out, as these creatures seemed to be coming without pause-

There was a roaring, rallying war cry from behind them then; Varian fell back and allowed his Royal Guard to step forward to cover him as he turned, seeking the source of the cry.

His face wore a look of surprise as he beheld a sizable dwarven force, all of them mounted on heavily armored rams, thundering across the bridge for them.

"Aside, aside! Make room!" Varian bellowed.

Without questioning his order the men immediately split; Varian found himself hurrying aside as the dwarven company charged through, jostling one another to fit through the small area clear of the human forces. The rams trampled the attacking serpent beasts with little effort, driving a wedge into their group and continuing to plow forward.

"Rally to me! Behind them, charge!" Varian shouted.

He didn't question these welcome reinforcements, he simply gathered his guards around him and rushed forward back into the fray.

Through the fighting he suddenly found himself at the side of Magni. Varian severed the head from an attacking serpent beast and flashed the dwarven king a grim smile.

"I hope your presence here doesn't mean Ironforge has fallen."

"Still stands, don't ye worry," Magni chuckled. "The Archdruid forced closed the portal that was spilling these things out, freeing us up to come lend ye a hand, lad."

"A portal? Then there must be one somewhere here as well. Did Staghelm come with you?"

"No," Magni grunted. "Whatever he did took it out of him, he's back in Ironforge recovering. We're on our own on how to close this one, though he warns that no one must be near it when it collapses, it'll likely kill ye."

"That's promising," Varian growled. "I don't suppose you have any idea as to how to close it?"

"Unfortunately I don't, but I bet ye mages could come up with something. I sent one of my boys to find whoever be in charge up there to tell 'em."

Varian nodded, working both his swords back and forth to fend off a sudden surge in the creatures' charge. "I have faith in them."

"I would hope so. They might be the only hope ye got."

* * *

As she had anticipated, the robed beast had managed to strike her with a counterspell that stripped her of her levitation and flight enchantment. She had managed to cast a temporary one before striking the ground, managing to slow her descent to only a jarring landing (versus a splattering impact) but now she was back on the ground, within reach of the rest of the monsters with the robed one circling overhead.

"So this is how it shall be then. Pure cowardice at its best," she muttered, drawing from a pocket a sapphire suspended from a ribbon. She snapped it, the ribbon changing and forming the rod of a wand with the sapphire at its tip; a moment later she sent a crippling blast of lightning at the few creatures that had charged her even as she sent a volley of arcane missiles flying into the air after her airborne opponent.

Surprisingly nearly every missile struck, knocking the thing senseless and sending it tumbling to the ground. Before hitting the ground it managed to throw a spell; instead of levitating, as Meraka had, the ground itself seemed to go soft, briefly swallowing the beast before pushing it to the surface and becoming hard-packed red clay once more.

Meraka looked from it to the rest of the monsters charging at her, freshly released from the portal, and swore softly under her breath. Eyes narrowing, mind already forming a list of defensive spells, she stood straight and tall.

"Lok'tar ogar," she snarled.

The area exploded in an arcane fury.


	10. Chapter 10

Mikael had figured out why the ancient Hssriii'rhak had picked him up, and he also marvelled at how something that looked so damn old could so nimbly scale down the face of an essentially vertical rock wall. All he could really do was hang on and pray the reptile didn't lose his grip or decide to drop him in some bizarre twist of loyalties.

Yoekai'rhak, for all her size, either couldn't or didn't see a need to move very quickly, and the speedy Hssrii'rhak had left the "goddess" far behind, racing through their ruined world until they came to a gaping chasm in the ground, one that bore the look of having been created by Yoekai'rhak herself; Mikael again pictured the goddess bursting from the ground, and more or less concluded that an opening this big and this jagged must have been made the same way. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

Down they went, things getting darker by the moment. The Hssriii'rhak carrying him suddenly let go and they fell down into complete blackness; briefly Mikael felt a sense of panic, both at the falling and at the fact that he couldn't even see anything anymore, but soon enough the breath was knocked out of him as the Hssriii'rhak hit the ground and kept moving, even though the impact probably would have shattered bones had the warlock it was carrying attempted it.

For Mikael all there was in the world now was the darkness, the Hssriii'rhak beneath him, and the sounds of claws raking stone echoing all around him, their 'honor guard' of Hssriii'rhak that ran with the elder that carried him.

He was about to demand to know where they were going when there was a loud, guttural hiss from all the creatures around him. Suddenly there were flittering orbs, about the size of the palm of his hand, dancing in the air around him; they glowed a soft green, and he was uneasily reminded of the lights that had swirled around in the top of the tree at the bottom of the well...that giant tree Jin'Loki had manipulated into using to spawn Hssriii'rhak. Despite his discomfort, he had to admit that at least he could see where they were going - not that it helped much, as they were running down a rough cavern tunnel, but at least he could see the rocky walls flashing by as they moved.

Moments later he was - quite literally - dumped on his rear end in the middle of the tunnel, with the group of Hssriii'rhak fanning out around him. He rolled up to one knee, hand going for his sword, but they did not attack.

_ "Here. Go."_

"Here? But there's nothing here," Mikael said, looking around at the solid rock all around him - and trying not to think of the several tons of rock that had to be hanging above him.

The ancient Hssriii'rhak snorted and pointed over his shoulder; Mikael turned to look and, in the faint lighting, could just barely make out what looked like a crack running from floor to ceiling. Pushing himself to his feet, Mikael walked that way and the Hssriii'rhak standing in his way quickly moved, forming a solid group of creatures behind him.

The lights moved with him, at least, swirling around his head like a swarm of insects. He stepped up to the crack and examined it; the opening was very narrow, but it widened the further back it went. Experimentally he stuck his arm into it to test the width; if he turned sideways he might fit, but it would be snug at first.

Mikael turned back to the Hssriii'rhak behind him, looking at the old one. "What I seek is in here?"

_"Go. Free. Hurry."_

He was about to ask why, then the ground shook. With little hisses of alarm, the Hssriii'rhak turned to face the way they'd come.

_"Hurry,"_ the elder hissed again. "_Coming."_

The thought of facing Yoekai'rhak in this tunnel made his earlier uneasiness over the lights evaporate completely. Mikael turned back to the crack and twisted sideways, shoving himself into the opening as quickly as he could. Rock painfully scraped his hands, chest, and back as he squeezed through the first narrow part; it was slow going for the first six feet or so, pushing and pulling and kicking his way through the best he could. Slowly, however, the crack widened until he could almost stand facing front, his shoulders brushing the stone on either side. It was much easier to scoot sideways now, and as he continued forward he began to wonder how far back this crack went.

An eternity later, it seemed, he nearly fell out of the crack as it dumped him out into a small room...or, at least, a room that seemed small, in comparison what took up nearly its entirety.

"You've got to be kidding me..." Mikael groaned, looking at it.

It was identical to the tree at the bottom of the well, only smaller in scale. Its green-lit branches would brush his head if he stepped closer, and the entire thing was surrounded in a greenish-gray mist. He swore he could hear the faintest of screams echoing from it; experimentally he sent a few flickers of a soul-draining spell at it and was instantly so overwhelmed by the sheer number of souls within it that he felt someone had taken a mallet to the back of his head. Beyond the clamor of souls he swore he saw a network of thin lines stretching out from the tree and fading into darkness; this tree was connected to others within the other pocket dimensions the Hssriii'rhak were being "stored" in, and the sheer number of connections Mikael could sense almost overwhelmed as much as the brush with the souls in the tree had.

It would seem – or at least, he could only guess – that the souls of the stolen Azerothians, as well as those of the Hssriii'rhak that were slain, were returning to this tree, and the others, and being used again. As he rolled that thought over in his mind, he felt further souls brushing by him, being drawn into the tree and joining the clamor within it.

"All right, not doing that again," he muttered, wiping tears from his eyes and gently massaging his temples against the onslaught of a throbbing headache. This tree then, was the object that Datavian had said was lending power and the mad goddess' blessing to Daranara...

At least it wasn't a full-sized tree; this one should be no problem to dest-

"Uncle!"

From behind the tree, somehow, Daranara stepped out with Leah in tow; she quickly backhanded the girl, then fixed a smoldering glare on Mikael.

"I won't let you ruin everything. I have worked too hard..."

"Let Leah go," Mikael growled. "She's just a child."

Daranara threw back her head and laughed. "A child? My child. You are all my children...and you have all misbehaved for the final time."

"Uncle," Leah whimpered, leaning away from Daranara as far as she could. "She's going to hurt my papa..."

Mikael's eyes narrowed. "I said, let her go."

In the same motion Daranara threw the child at the wall and sprang for Mikael; the warlock barely had time to get his blade up and in a blocking position before the maddened female was upon him. Her clawed hands scraped down Spellcleaver and down his chest, leaving deep furrows in the leather armor he wore even as the scratches sparked with corrupted arcane energy.

Mikael tucked a leg up and planted a foot in her gut, kicking her back and then looping his foot behind her ankle and sweeping her legs out from under her. His lunge in to drive Spellcleaver home was blocked with a glittering shield that, when he struck it, detonated and sent him flying back to become partially wedged against the floor and wall in the crack he'd entered the room from.

He pulled his legs to his chest and kicked out, his boots solidly connecting with Daranara as she pounced on him; an electrical charge raced up his legs and he felt his muscles go unresponsive even as he heard the bone-cracking thud of the female colliding with the tree.

Suddenly Leah was crouching by his side, eyes wide with fear and with a purpled bruise on her chin.

"G-get behind me, Leah," Mikael stuttered, willing his legs to stop their twitching. His own eyes widened when he heard a thundering roar from the tunnel behind them. "On s-second thought," he amended, "stay right t-there."

He managed to sit up and pull her in against his side, his other hand fumbling to get a solid grip on Spellcleaver's hilt; Daranara was pulling herself to her feet, snarling wordlessly.

She leaned against the tree for support and raised a hand glowing with some sort of destructive spell; Mikael mentally readied a defensive spell, then the words simply went blank in his mind as, to his surprise, a hand shot out of the tree and seized Daranara by the throat. The female was obviously surprised as well, as her spell fizzled out and she clamped both of her hands around the one choking her in an attempt to pry herself free.

"Hey, chill out a moment dere, mon," a disembodied voice chuckled.

The hand let go and Daranara flew back and struck the wall where, springing from the stone, vines appeared to wrap around her squirming and struggling form until she wasn't even visible.

Eyes wide, Mikael watched as a slim figure leapt from within the tree, landing lightly on his feet and turning to regard the trapped Daranara suspended on the wall.

"What else should I expect?" Mikael finally sputtered, as the figure turned toward him and gave him a grim wave.

"'ey mon," Kakum said simply.

The troll had changed since Mikael had last seen him; he bore wild red tatoos all over his body, and being as he wore little more than a short kilt Mikael could see most of the troll's skin - the markings were everywhere, on every visible inch of skin.

Along with the tatoos the troll seemed to carry an aura of power about him, an aura that weighted the air and pressed in against Mikael like a heavy wet cloth.

"What happened to you?" Mikael asked in a rush.

Kakum shrugged. "Seems I can't escape me fate, mon. Dey want me ta serve, so I'm servin'. Jakani I guess tried ta warn me...shoulda listened, mon."

"What are you doing here? How'd you even get here?"

Kakum jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the tree. "Dis is a tree, and when ya sent ya little magic tingy through it, we felt da pathway open. So we came."

"We?" Mikael repeated.

Kakum stepped back, and suddenly the room was full of brightly painted and armored trolls, all of them stepping from the tree. Mikael opened his mouth to comment when the room itself shook as Yoekai'rhak, somewhere in the tunnels behind them, roared.

"We don' got a lot 'o time, mon, so here's wat ya gunna do. Ya gunna step tru' dat tree, and forget about dis place."

Mikael shook his head. "I was sent here to destroy this tree, I'm not leaving until I do."

This time Kakum shook his head. "Look, warlock. It seems our path, it always been leadin' us to dis moment. Dis may not be a real world, but it be real ta da real Hssriii'rhak who managed ta survive dere goddess' madness. We can turn dis into a passable excuse for a real world, but first it gonna take some order, which we bring, and some Balance, which will come shortly."

"And what about Yoekai'rhak?" Mikael interrupted, wincing as another roar shook the walls.

"Dat overgrown garter snake? I'ma put 'er where she belongs mon - back into da land ta nourish dis place. She gotta pay for da world she destroyed in da first place."

"Trust me," Kakum said softly after a moment. "Get goin' while da gettin' still be good. Ya leave dis in my hands, we take care of it."

Mikael swallowed hard, nodded, and tried to stand with Leah helping him up; with the girl clinging to his waist, Mikael slowly threaded his way through the group of trolls, all of them watching him silently. He was nearly to Kakum when the troll whirled and threw up a shield of glimmering green as Daranara's vine prison suddenly shattered.

Mikael instinctively raised his arm to protect his eyes even as he turned his body to shield Leah, but Kakum's shield held and Mikael uncovered his eyes in time to see the woman dive into the tree and disappear.

"Mm, well. Look like she ain't me problem now. Let 'er starve in one o' da other pockets she got full," Kakum said dryly. He let the shield drop and turned to Mikael. "When Yoekai'rhak gone, her power will be gone too, an' she'll die. Your power might, too, but I not sure about dat...might be nice ta be normal if it true, right?"

"Normal? I don't think I know what that even means," Mikael replied with a heavy sigh.

Daranara had escaped, either back to Azeroth or into one of her other pocket dimensions. If she'd made it to the pocket dimension, and Kakum "took care of things" then that meant the woman would die, the last of her kind. If she'd made it back to Azeroth, though...

Kakum and his trolls were apparently coming here to stop Yoekai'rhak, and...what? Help the Hssriii'rhak rebuild their world and lives?

"Will you ever return to Azeroth?" he asked quietly.

Kakum just looked at him silently a moment, then snorted. "No, mon, I won't be. None o' us will. When me people all tru the gateway, I'ma shatter the tree. We're here fer good, fer better o' worse, life o' death. It better dis way, us fadin' away wit da word of Order. She, and Balance, never belonged here, and neither do we."

The trolls began to press forward, moving beyond Mikael and squeezing into the crack that led out into the tunnel where, Mikael supposed, the ancient Hssriii'rhak and his followers were doing their best to hold their maddened goddess' shade at bay. Leah tightened her grip on his waist and whimpered quietly; Mikael gently squeezed her shoulder, then regarded the tree.

"...I guess this is goodbye then," he said, without looking at Kakum.

Kakum just nodded. "Get movin' dere, human. Good luck."

Mikael nodded shortly - a small part of him didn't believe the troll, didn't believe that someone would willingly trap themselves and their people on a dead world. He fully believed Kakum when the troll said he would shatter the tree, but...that second part, that small detail where Kakum and his clan would be stuck on this world forever...he couldn't believe that, nor did he want to. But he didn't have a choice.

He stepped aside momentarily to get out of the way as a group of three trolls - as armored and painted as the others that had come through - stepped from the tree, then Kakum cleared his throat loudly.

"'ey, if ya ever find yaself in da Barrens, and run inta Brocko, ask 'im ta keep my wife company. She get lonely when I not be around."

Mikael didn't reply, merely nodded then tightened his grip on Leah and leapt at the trunk of the tree; Leah shrieked, but they passed through the seemingly solid wood and -

Mikael suddenly found himself in snow, sank in up to his waist, as a biting wind whistled around his ears, driving a steady rain of white flakes down on them. Leah gripped him tightly.

"Oooh, cold," the girl murmured, her teeth already beginning to chatter.

Mikael quickly picked her up and held her, her legs encircling his waist as she wrapped arms around his neck; he turned his back to the wind, wondering where the hell Kakum had sent them. He conjured a ball of flame in the palm of his hand and held it close to Leah, though the warmth the flame exuded was quickly lost in the wind.

'Great. We escape a pocket dimension that mirrored a dead world, only to be destined to freeze to death in the middle of nowhere,' Mikael thought grimly, feeling how Leah was already beginning to shake.

Suddenly she shifted, lifting an arm from around his neck. "Uncle, what are those?" she chattered, pointing back behind him.

Mikael turned enough to allow him to peer back over his shoulder; the snow stung his eyes, but through the swirling white he could just make out the forms of hulking silhouettes, coming through the storm for them.

* * *

Datavian carefully knelt over Pit, gently rolling the blood elf onto his back and immediately noticing the spreading blood stain on the front of his robes. At least he knew where the female Forsaken had gone...sort of. She didn't appear to be in the room at the present, though that meant little to the mage - she could easily be anywhere, hidden within the shadows.

At the moment it didn't matter. Datavian gently began unfastening the robes, and as he did so the elf's eyes fluttered open.

"So you're not as dead as I'd thought," he said quietly.

Pit let out a wordless groan, eyelids fluttering. Datavian then noticed the odd angle to the elf's jaw; he carefully touched a finger to it and Pit let out another groan, even jerking slightly away.

"I'll tend to the jaw in a moment then," Datavian said grimly. He tugged at the robes until he'd stripped the elf down to bare skin, eying the stab wound critically. It wasn't fatal, he knew that much - the elf would have expired by now if it was.

Before doing anything, however, he waved a hand and caused three vials to materialize in the air by his head; they floated down to land gently in his palms and he carefully settled them on the floor by Pit's side. After he was through helping the blood elf, he would likely need the vials to speed things up a bit.

"This might hurt, but endure it and it will be over with quickly," he muttered.

He put one hand over the stab wound, and the other over his own gut, and concentrated. One benefit to having been in Daranara's thrall all these years was he now possessed a vast knowledge of spells that others would consider...questionable. One such spell was this one, a weaving of magic that would allow for a transfusion of injury.

As Datavian chanted and channeled the proper energies, he felt a searing pain in his gut - it began as little more than an itch that then intensified into a stabbing agony. If he were any other man it would have paralyzed him, breathless, sent him doubling over...but he was hardly an ordinary man anymore. He could feel the pain, but he was far beyond caring about pain.

Channeling the spell was a simple matter and he could already tell the blood elf was recovering simply by noting the color returning to the male's face, and how the elf's breathing became easier and less shallow as Datavian literally drew the gut wound out of the elf and placed it within his own body.

Within moments the elf was struggling to sit up, a look of shock on his face.

"You'll be all right in a moment, let me tend to the jaw-"

Again Pit let out senseless moan through his broken jaw and pointed frantically. Datavian, beginning to turn, suddenly felt a new pain blossom just above his left kidney. He jerked at the blow, spun around, and watched as two daggers plunged into his chest to the hilt.

The hands holding those daggers belonged to the Forsaken woman, of course, and she sneered at him as she withdrew and struck again, both blades biting deep. Datavian jerked with each blow, then finally had the sense of mind to reach out to stop her; his hand shot out, the dagger piercing his palm, his hand sliding down the blade to grip the weapon and the hand holding it.

The Forsaken certainly looked surprised, and that look deepened when Datavian stood up and seemed utterly unphased as she planted her free weapon into his stomach. She wrenched that same blade free and began stabbing, seemingly randomly; Datavian jerked and twitched with each blow but still remained standing, and kept his hold on both the Forsaken's hand and the dagger embedded in his palm.

Finally, with a howl of frustration, the woman sank her free weapon into the mage's neck, in the soft place where neck met shoulder. Datavian merely glanced at it, the hilt protruding just enough for him to be able to see it, his utter lack of concern deepening the Forsaken's frustration...and bringing on a hint of fear that intensified when Datavian tugged on her captured hand, pulling her in close.

"You have no idea the magnitude of the mistake you just made," he said darkly. He snapped the fingers of his free hand and watched as his summoned spell lifted the now-struggling undead off her feet and held her in midair; she lost her grip on her blade even as Datavian released her hand, and as she flailed helplessly Datavian carelessly plucked the dagger in his neck free and let it drop to the floor, using the one that had previously been in his palm to slice his clothing - and, underneath, his own flesh - from his collar bone to his hips, right down the center of his chest.

The white cloth wrapped around him fell away in tatters, clearly revealing a gut wound identical to what Pit had been suffering from only moments before, and also showing off the new stab wounds inflicted by the woman along with the long gash he'd placed there himself.

"Behold, you rotting idiot. I don't bleed. Pain does not bother me," he said coolly. "Mistress made me...exceptionally resilient, after my brother killed me in Terrokar," he went on. He brushed fingers against his bloodless wounds, gesturing at them. "Resilient, and regenerative. Do you see it?"

Though Pit could only see the man's back, he couldn't miss the fact that Datavian's wounds were healing on their own. The stabs sealed shut and disappeared, as though they had never been there; in the air, the Forsaken woman snarled wordlessly at him.

Datavian lifted a hand and pointed his palm toward her. "I fear no pain, no injury. Because no mere wound can end me, I can even internalize the suffering of others...quite a useful ability, as I have demonstrated here upon this blood elf. When I am through with you, I shall repair his jaw in the same way."

"I pity you though. I can so easily tell how fully dominated you are by Daranara, beyond any sort of help now...I sense her madness and hatred running through your veins like befouled blood. You weren't strong enough to resist her control...at first, I wasn't either, but I learned. I don't even feel a conflict within you, to be honest - you're GLAD she has control, and you don't even know why. I daresay you willingly allowed her to take you over," he said, eyes narrowing. "You are even weaker-willed than I once was, and ten times the fool as well. Killing you will be a kindness...but it doesn't have to be merciful."

With a single, sharply barked word, he conjured a roaring blast of flame within his palm and set it free upon the trapped woman. The Forsaken twisted, writhed, and screamed even as the air became foul with the smell of burning flesh and bone. Datavian held her suspended until she ceased moving, then let the still-burning corpse fall to the ground; he had already turned his back by the time it hit the floor with a soft wet plop.

Pit was staring at him with eyes wide with disbelief; Datavian ignored the look and reached to mend the elf's jaw.

There was still work to do, after all.

* * *

"I knew it was stupid for me to even try this," Darae grunted.

In one fist, gripped tightly, was a twisted crystal barely larger than his palm that was shot through with a copper-toned hue and glowed with a dark aura. Whatever the crystal's true function really was he didn't have time to think about – perhaps if he fully knew what it did, then he could figure out how to destroy it – as he ran, pumping his arms and almost even losing his grip on the crystal, as he fled from the shadows pursuing him.

The wolf spirit, who had guided him through this fake Nightmare and to the heart of the place, where the crystal had rested, easily loped along beside him, tongue hanging out in a lazy pant.

Darae had tried, unsuccessfully, everything he could think of to try and destroy the crystal...he had had no clear idea how to destroy it once he'd found it, and once he'd run out of ideas all these darting shadows had appeared around him and were now chasing him.

And they were far from harmless: the ones Darae had attempted to ignore had left bleeding scratches down his left forearm where they had clawed at him. The realization that they could harm him had prompted him to run, his prize clutched in one hand and his pursuers close behind.

"I can't do this. I told them I couldn't do this," Darae went on, speaking more to himself than to anyone else, as the wolf had been largely silent once the night elf had found him and the crystal.

To his surprise, the wolf looked up at him. 'But you tried anyway. That is what is important.'

"But I knew I wasn't strong enough, or smart enough, or whatever, for this. I'm going to die here and this stupid crystal will just be back where it was in the first place," Darae panted.

'But you tried. What did you fear, exactly?'

"Oh, letting everyone down. Failing." Darae paused, leaping a tangle of vegetation. "Dying."

'If you fear ever trying, you will never succeed at anything. Fear of failure before the effort means you will fail before even attempting.'

"I know that," Darae snapped. "But if I know I'm going to fail anyway, is there even a point in trying? What purpose could dying serve?"

'Think of your history. Of the history you have learned.'

"What?"

'The night elves holding back the Legion. The draenei fleeing the Legion. The defenders of Lordaeron who held back the Scourge. The humans who held back the orcish Horde. Do you think they ever had any thought as to what their death may accomplish?'

"The death of one can mean the survival of many," Darae said, surprised as the words left his lips. "But then...wait. I'm confused. Was I meant to die here?"

'You are gifted, boy. You can see and speak with me, when none of your kind can. You are not meant to die here - I am. But you must understand first.'

"Understand WHAT?"

'To try is not always to fail. A journey does not begin until one has taken the first step...you must not fear the first step.'

Darae shook his head. "I still don't understand."

'You will, in time. You will continue your journey without me, but there will be others to guide your steps when the time is right. For now, carry my words with you. Go seek the dragon that brought you here and return to your world.'

"Can I even do that?" Darae asked, glancing over his shoulder at the shadows that chased them. "Won't these things follow me? What if they somehow get out into the real world? And I don't think Pathora will come get me if he thinks I'm within the Nightmare still."

'You cannot fear the first step. Farewell.'

With those simple parting words the wolf spun and darted back, leaping headlong into the shadows that pursued them. Darae, his startled outcry catching in his throat, found himself unable to turn around; he felt as though he were trapped in the iron grip of some invisible, giant hand that continued to propel him along even as the terrible noises of a great struggle erupted behind him. Snarls, barks, yips, and growls followed along behind him even as the force that held him forced the night elf to keep running.

In the spanse of a single blink of his eyes, however, Darae found himself back out in the twilight of the Emerald Dream. The shadow of the false Nightmare had left him.

Still running, Darae looked down to the crystal he held tightly clenched in one hand. What would he do with it, once he returned to the waking world?

A great shadow suddenly passed by overhead; Darae instinctively ducked and for a wild, fearful moment he thought the shadow creatures had caught up to him, but then there was the great bulk of Pathora settling to the ground in front of him, his head lowering to the ground and turning to fix the night elf with one wide eye.

"Boy? Is it truly you?"

Darae tripped, stumbled, and hit his knees as the force that had been keeping his legs pumping released him. "Yeah, it's me. I found the crystal but I don't know how to destroy it." As he spoke he raised the hand holding the crystal, showing it to the dragon.

Pathora studied it, then shifted his gaze back to the youth. "Perhaps merely removing it from the Dream will help. Avlen may also be of assistance. Let us leave before the - wait."

"What?"

Darae turned to look behind him even as the dragon drew himself up to his full height, wings flaring wide; the false Nightmare was...shimmering. Flickering, even, reminding Darae of a sputtering candle. He could no longer hear the battle he knew to be raging between the shadow beasts and the wolf spirit, but with how the fake Nightmare was flickering he wouldn't be surprised if he found himself able to see it and-

Without warning a piercing pain exploded in Darae's head.

'MOVE BOY. NOW.'

The spectral wolf's voice was thunderous, booming, and Darae felt himself falling forward; at once the light seemed to 'go out' around him, even as air whistled between his legs. Blinking blearily, the pain gone as suddenly as it had come, Darae found himself unable to move; it took several moments for him to realize he was gripped tightly in Pathora's talons, and the dragon was soaring through the skies of the Emerald Dream.

Darae sniffed and discovered his nose was bleeding, but he couldn't reach a hand up to stem the flow of blood; he could only grip the crystal he held and sniffle, and wait for the dragon to return them to the natural world of Azeroth.

It did not take long to leave the Emerald Dream; moments after discovering his bloodied nose, Darae felt the biting cold wind of Winterspring wrap around his legs. He heard the soft crush of snow as Pathora landed, and then the cold intensified as the dragon carefully opened his talons and peered down at the night elf boy.

"Are you well?"

Darae brushed a hand glowing with healing magics across his bleeding nose. "Well enough...my head hurts, and it's cold," he added, starting to shiver despite trying not to.

Pathora nodded, his huge head bobbing up and down slowly. "Yes. Let us return to the home of the blue dragons. We will seek Avlen."

The green helped Darae clamber up onto his back, then lifted up into the sky and quickly traveled to the cavern system of the blue dragons. Avlen, in his elven form, met them at the mouth of the cave entrance, eyes lit up in excitement.

"What do you have? What is it? I can sense it...an item of great power. Corrupted power, filthy power, but power nonetheless. Where is it?"

Darae carefully slid from Pathora's back - the green shrinking down into his own elven form, retying his blindfold across his eyes - and was nearly bowled over by the excited blue. He held up the crystaland Avlen snatched it from his grasp, eying it.

"What is this...this is...hmm," the dragon intoned, abruptly losing all interest in his guests as he carefully waved a hand over the crystal in his palm. "I see...yes, yes. This is the source of the corrupted arcane powers I have been sensing as of late. And what is this...a link. I sense a link, leading elsewhere...hmm."

"It's the crystal in the fake Nightmare that I was meant to destroy," Darae interrupted. "I...I couldn't figure out how."

Avlen pursed his lips, then began chewing on his lower one. "I see, I see. It is no wonder that you couldn't - this crystal is warded against most types of tampering, so far as I can tell with such a cursory examination. I will need to further study it and make sure there are no...unfortunate surprises to be had with it. But this is definitely the item you sought?"

"It is."

"Then come, there is much I must discover and I've only a short time to do so I fear. This link...what could it be..."

Still grasping the crystal and now even muttering to himself, Avlen spun on his heel and began to stalk back into the caverns. Darae went to follow him, then really WAS bowled over by the blue as the dragon quickly turned; Darae landed in the snow on his backside and Avlen nearly tripped over him, but the blue paid him little attention, instead looking directly at Pathora.

"Did you feel...? Did you sense that?"

Pathora stared sightlessly back, then shook his head. "I imagine not."

Avlen snorted, but stepped around Darae and strode toward the green...then continued walking past the green, staring off aimlessly into the distance.

"...something is. Something is here," he said then. He turned and wordlessly gestured, and within moments a gathering of dragonkin had assembled around him. "Follow."

Avlen leapt into the air impossibly high, changing even as he went; below him the dragonkin plunged forward into the snow at a dead run.

Pathora watched them go, then turned to Darae. "Come. Let him discover what he will. We must get you inside before you freeze."

Darae nodded numbly, teeth chattering.


	11. Chapter 11

The dragonkin bore down on them, erupting from the swirling snow like nightmares. Mikael let the flame in his palm die and went to draw his sword even as Leah clung to his neck and whimpered in terror...only to shriek when suddenly a full-grown adult blue dragon was hovering above them.

"Back, BACK, they are MINE!" the dragon bellowed.

The dragonkin spread out to encircle them, and Mikael had Spellcleaver drawn and ready by the time the dragon landed - in the form of an elf, dropping gracefully from the sky - in front of them.

"Stay back, Light damn you," Mikael snarled. "I haven't the time to bother with dragons."

"Who are you?" the dragon demanded, eyes narrowing. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply, then he strode forward. "Who are you who stinks of corrupted magic? Who stinks of what this contains?"

Mikael blinked as the dragon suddenly held up what looked like a large, twisted crystal. "I have no idea what that even is. Look, I have bigger things to attend to than to stand here and freeze while arguing. Leave us be."

"Absolutely not, not until I know how you are connected to this bauble that boy pulled from the Dream."

At once, things clicked together in the warlock's mind. "Boy? And the Dream...wait. Darae? He's here?"

The dragon snorted. " Explain yourself, human. And also..." Now the dragon leaned in to peer at Leah, the girl burying her face into Mikael's neck. "...explain the...child."

"This girl is my niece, and I've got a name," Mikael growled. "I'm Mikael Sullivan, son of James Sullivan, and currently in the middle of a very big mess."

"Do tell."

"Look, just..." Mikael paused, blew out an exasperated sigh, then inhaled deeply. "I'm... That crystal in a blessing bestowed open a mad woman, from a mad goddess from another world, who would very much like to come to ours to destroy it. I know how to settle this entire mess, if only I can get back to where I was imprisoned only a few hours ago."

The dragon's eyes suddenly blanked as he stared at a point somewhere above Mikael's head, then that gaze focused on the warlock again. "Of course. The link...the link I sense must lead somewhere."

Mikael visibly cringed. "If you mean somewhere as in a physical location, I truly hope it's not to the little pocket world we just escaped," he said, gesturing to the muck - now frozen - clinging to him.

The dragon sniffed, then grinned. "Only one way to find out. Come!"

The dragon went into a spellcasting over the crystal, and Mikael simply stared at him. "You have got to be joking."

"I never joke," the dragon said finally, his casting over with. He snapped his fingers and a portal appeared between them, shimmering in the wind. "In we go."

"Do you mind me asking where?" Mikael asked dryly.

"To wherever this link I sense leads. There's little time to waste, human - I have heard this entire mad goddess story, no need to bore me with the details."

Without another word the dragon dove through the portal and disappeared. Mikael looked around the portal at the silent dragonkin staring back at him, then groaned audibly; Leah was shivering in his arms as he sheathed Spellcleaver then looked dubiously at the portal.

"This has bad idea written all over it," he sighed. He hefted Leah, then quickly stepped through the portal.

* * *

A crater that was nearly fifteen feet deep in the center was all that remained of the portal that had released the serpentine beasts upon Orgrimmar.

Inside the crater were skeletal remains of the creatures, burnt so thoroughly that only bleached bone remained behind in the red clay.

The sheer magnitude of the power released in the area had cracked the earth around the crater - an outpouring of magic that had gone off like a bomb, battering Thrall and his forces as they sprinted across the Barrens with a shock wave that even unseated a few riders. The light, and the resulting cloud and the far-off noise of an explosion...all was seen and heard by those riding with their Warchief, and not knowing its cause had driven them to urge their mounts into such speeds that it was a wonder none had dropped dead from burst hearts.

Thrall felt as though his heart was about burst, however.

He stood, sheer rage and sorrow swelling within him, with his warriors and the little druid arranged behind him, seven feet back from the lip of the crater. He did not stand there out of fear that the weakened, shattered earth would fall away beneath him and send him tumbling down into the crater's center.

No, he stood there because six feet from the crater's lip was the body of Meraka.

There was a trail in the dirt behind the body, evidence that the mage had lived long enough to drag herself from the crater itself. Her battle robes, once so fine, were in tatters across her back and legs; her head was turned to the side and her hair had come undone from the precise braids and fell across her face in a mess, hiding what Thrall knew had to be a face frozen in a rictus of agony.

And her death must have been agonizing, he knew. Her hands, stretched out before her, still clutching the dirt as though she would drag herself forward at any moment, were more like grasping claws - the flesh shriveled down to the bone. Her bare legs were shriveled as well, as though the explosion of magic and the collapse of the portal had sucked the life from her body.

Carefully...silently...and reverently, Thrall knelt and gently brushed away the hair from the face, but was surprised to see not a grimace of pain but a smile upon the mage's face. The flesh of her face had atrophied as well, but there was no mistaking the fierce, triumphant grin that spread across her features. Thrall gingerly closed her half-open eyes, then simply dropped to his knees in the dirt and rested his hands upon his thighs.

After a long moment had passed, he slowly turned to look back at his warriors from over a shoulder. "A cloak, please."

Many moved at once and the Warchief suddenly found as many as a dozen cloaks offered to him. He selected one without looking and carefully began to wrap the seemingly feather-light body of his dead mage within the fabric.

Finally, with his macabre burden lifted in his arms, Thrall stood and turned to face those assembled behind him.

"Let this sacrifice never be forgotten. The head of the serpent has been removed, but the tail still twitches. We ride to Orgrimmar, to rid our home of the enemy. Lok'tar..." he paused, and looked to the body he held. "Lok'tar ogar!"

* * *

Datavian, once the wounds inflicted by the Forsaken woman had healed, took in as much of the jaw injury from the blood elf as possible, channeling the pain inward until he felt his own jaw snap and he could no longer speak to continue the spell.

His jaw hanging at a strange angle now - and what a bizarre feeling it was! - he could only carefully gesture and summon to himself two flasks, and only because he happened to know their exact location. He kept one for himself and handed the other to the elf, miming that he should drink it.

'I can't do much else for him,' he thought as he unscrewed the cap of the flask and gazed in at the glowing red liquid inside. 'He'll either drink or he won't.'

It was difficult to swallow with a broken jaw - he settled for inhaling, holding his breath, then tipping his head back and letting the potion drain down his throat, and once he had emptied the flask he lay back on the floor to let both his regenerative abilities and the healing potion work. In truth he didn't really need the potion, and likely he should have given both to the blood elf, but with both his own abilities and the potion working together his jaw would mend itself quickly: the blood elf could suffer through a slower healing process, being as Datavian had drawn out most of the injury anyhow.

Datavian lay there with his eyes shut, but shutting his eyes did not diminish the rest of his senses and so he was aware of a shift in air pressure and a brief blast of chilled, fresh air. Immediately he bolted into an upright position, mind forming a list of spells he could cast without a spoken encantation, but he forgot all about that when he saw their 'visitors'.

There was a blue-eyed elf he didn't recognize, appearing from thin air and instantly, curiously, staring around and then staring directly at the massive spell matrix that stood in the room.

Behind him, also appearing from the air, stepped Mikael carrying Leah. Datavian let out a wordless groan, and the attention of the two humans shifted to him; Leah immediately began to squirm and finally Mikael set her on her feet and she ran for him with a shout of "Papa!"

Datavian opened his arms and caught her as she dove for him, rubbing his cheek against the top of her head.

How had Mikael retrieved Leah and returned here? Did Leah open the way?

Suddenly, with a sickening crack, Datavian's jaw both mended and snapped back into place; Mikael shuddered, making a sound of disgust in his throat.

"That was gross."

"How?" Datavian croaked, his voice coming out gravelly. He impatiently cleared his throat, staring up at his brother as he hugged his daughter.

Mikael carefully stepped around the smoldering remains of the Forsaken woman, wrinkling his nose at the stench. "It's a long story, but the short of it is Daranara has escaped, probably back to Azeroth somewhere."

"She will come for us...for you," Datavian said. He gently stroked Leah's hair. "And for her," he added, looking down at Leah with a worried smile. "We must be ready." He turned his attention to the elf that had arrived with Mikael, and found that the elf was studying him intently, looking first at the mage then at his daughter with narrowed eyes. "And who is this?"

"A, uh, dragon," Mikael said, looking at him. "I don't know his name, however."

"Avlen," the dragon said absently, still looking from Datavian to Leah with a puzzled expression on his face. "Curious...I must be mistaken."

"About what?"

"Nothing, no matter. What is this?" Avlen went on, turning his attention back to the spell matrix. "This is a...very intricate piece of work. What is its function?"

"To capture the released energy of Mikael when Daranara kills him, meant to power a portal that will bring her maddened goddess here to Azeroth," Datavian answered, in a flat monotone.

Avlen made a thoughtful noise. "I see."

The blood elf, Pit, had managed to roll over and into a kneeling position, and looked up from where he was examining his uninjured stomach. "I, uh -" he started, then paused to clear his throat as Datavian had, "I was told to destroy it. I was stopped before I could give it a try however."

"Always with the destroying," Avlen chuckled. "It's good that you didn't...I can tell just by a cursory examination that a simple destructive approach to a matrix of this magnitude would have produced quite a violent reaction. The resulting explosion probably would have killed you." The dragon-turned-elf began to slowly circle the matrix, gesturing here and there as he cast spells. "Yes...yes, I see. QUITE a violent reaction indeed..."

Pit turned and gave Datavian a sour look; Datavian merely shrugged.

"On my honor, such as it is, I swear I had no idea."

"I believe I could find a way to harmlessly unravel all the spellwork in this, if given enough time," Avlen interrupted. "We can't very well allow something this dangerous to just sit, even though I would greatly enjoy taking the time to take this apart piece by piece and study it at my leisure."

"The quicker it is destroyed, the better," Datavian said firmly. "We cannot risk the chance that Yoekai'rhak will find a way to still use it to come here."

"Is that this goddess' name? I know the story, spare me the details," Avlen said. He squared his shoulders and strode directly into the center of the matrix, raising his hands high. "I'll be quite distracted once I begin this, and any interruptions mean I will have to start over again, if I don't accidentally blow us all up due to interruption, so do keep quiet."

Mikael looked over to where Pit was picking himself up off the floor and straightening his robes. "Stay alert."

The blood elf nodded and went back to righting himself.

Mikael turned his attention to his brother and niece, coming over to stand before them.

"Are you okay?" he asked, raising an eyebrow as he took in his brother's topless condition.

Datavian nodded shortly. "Yes. Things are almost at an end..."

Mikael's expression darkened. "Are you absolutely certain that...?"

Again, Datavian nodded. "I am. When she is gone...I will go with her."

Mikael stared at his feet, grinding his teeth together. "There MUST be something I can do, it can't end this way! It's not fair."

"Life isn't fair," Datavian answered quietly. "We do what we can but ultimately we are slaves to our fate. Mine was sealed the day Daranara captured me."

Slowly, Mikael touched a finger to his own forehead. "I...at the bottom of the pool, when we spoke to one another, I could see that...feel it. Did you let me see it, solely so someone would know what truly happened?"

Datavian was silent a long moment, then inhaled deeply. "Yes and no. Yes, because I wished for my folly to be known. No, because I couldn't stand the shame...but you saw it, and what's done is done. Hopefully, someday, father will forgive me."

Mikael knelt beside them, bowing his head a moment. "Father...will understand. I think that, all this time...much like how I struggled with it...I don't think he ever truly blamed you, or believed you were capable of such evil."

Datavian's face reddened. "All men are capable of evil. Look at what I have done..."

"No," Mikael said firmly. "What happened, happened because she made you do such things."

"Yes, she did make me...because I was weak," Datavian responded quietly.

Mikael opened his mouth to reply, but shut his mouth quick enough that Datavian heard the teeth click together; the warlock turned, Spellcleaver unsheathing as he moved, as the air shimmered and Daranara was then among them.

Mikael sprang at her, and the two clashed together even as Pit began to hammer at her with fire and shadow.

* * *

He gently grasped her shoulders and turned her from the violent battle, tipping her chin up to face him so he could stare into those wide, impossibly innocent eyes.

"Dearest, I've been very ill for a very long time," he began. "I'm going to go to sleep to try and feel better, and I don't know...I mean, I will be gone for a very long time."

"How long, Papa?"

A chuckle. "I don't know, my dear. Until I am...better, I suppose. However long that may take."

The lie echoed hollowly in his mind...

"I want you to be a good girl. Your uncle will take care of you while I'm gone, I want you to listen to him and to learn and grow up to be a good person who does good things. Do you understand?"

"Of course, Papa. I'll be a good girl."

"I'm glad, that makes me very happy."

For a moment he watched the fight: Daranara fought with a frenzy to her actions - her movements were erratic, like she wasn't even aware of them herself. The combined efforts of both warlocks were overwhelming her, however; her spells came slower, less accurately, more of the warlocks's spells struck their target.

Sensing time was running out, he once again smiled down at his daughter.

"Leah? I love you, more than anything."

She blinked up at him, then smiled widely. "I know that Papa. I've always known that."

He swallowed, hard, then just pulled her into a hug; he closed his eyes, and then opened them.

"KILL HER!"

* * *

Mikael ducked and kicked up, putting as much force behind the kick as he could muster; he felt his foot connect and heard the click of teeth ramming together, heard her spell fizzle as she recoiled from the blow.

He had her. He could end her now, and there was nothing she could do about it. Pit held back, waiting for him to deliver the final blow.

But he paused.

At once, behind him, he heard Datavian cry out.

"KILL HER!"

A scream - long, drawn out, agonized, and terrible.

If Mikael struck Daranara down, his brother would die...but if he did not, then she would be free to attempt her evil elsewhere, and Datavian would never be free of her. Even without Yoekai'rhak, the potential for mayhem was very great...and his brother's freedom...

Mikael closed his eyes, damned himself and prayed, and swung.

He felt no resistance as Spellcleaver took the female's head from her shoulders. It struck the floor with a wet plop and began spilling its contents across the ground, but Mikael paid no attention to it and instead was turning, rushing back to where his brother had knelt.

He wasn't kneeling anymore; he had tipped to his side, his legs trapped under him awkwardly, his breathing reduced to a shallow wheeze.

More alarming, however, was the fact that Leah lay just as limply beside her father.

* * *

The blue dragon known as Avlen hovered inside the spell matrix, examining that which hung around him. He mentally dove into the threads of magic, followed them, raced along them and explored how they met and braided together and held the matrix steady.

He knew he hadn't the time to fully study this matrix - even though the greater bulk of his attention was focused on the matrix, he was still dimly aware of a struggle going on within the room - but he was nearly certain that there wasn't a gentle, non-violent way to unravel this matrix and release the energies within it harmlessly back into the world. He could see where he would need to initiate that first tug to send it all collapsing back into nothingness, but the resulting release of magic would likely demolish this room and anything within it.

Knowing this, Avlen still had his finger held over that point where he could send things tumbling apart, thinking.

Inwardly he knew he could easily start things rolling and then escape...but, unlike some other blue dragons he knew of - notable ones, even - he had a fairly loud conscience within him that was already launching into a lecture over how he couldn't possibly be considering leaving the mortals in the room to die.

Avlen blew out an exasperated sigh: he couldn't possibly move himself and a roomful of mortals away from here while still unraveling the matrix...well, he could, but not with any confident degree of accuracy. Once he set into motion the destruction of the matrix, he'd have less than an instant to move everyone; he wouldn't have the time to confirm the location of everyone in the room, and not knowing where exactly everyone was standing could prove possibly harmful once his spell was cast. His conscience was firmly telling him he couldn't in good faith attempt to forcefully move everyone without at least feeling confident that he could do it without any loss of life.

Sometimes a conscience was so inconvenient.

He detangled himself and retreated, dropping lightly to the floor back in front of the matrix, and immediately smelled the scent of fresh blood. Turning, he found that a freshly severed head was less than a foot from him; wrinkling his nose he stepped away, then heard the thud of a body hitting the ground.

Looking up he determined the thud was nothing more than the human warlock dropping to his knees; peering beyond the warlock he could see the prone forms of the...child...and that of a man that could have been the warlock's twin.

The human warlock - what was his name again? Oh well - was rather distressed, but wore too a look of confused helplessness as he turned from both the man on the floor to the girl, seemingly at a loss as to which to try and help first.

Avlen strode over, his curiosity getting the better of him. If what he had sensed upon finding the human - Mikael! Aha! - and the girl was true, then...

He waved a hand, his thin fingers flitting through the air, emitting faint traces of arcane energy that he directed first at the girl, then at the man...and moments later he confirmed his initial suspicions.

Mikael noticed him then, turning to face him with an anguished look.

"They're...they're both dying, but I thought...I mean, Datavian told me he would die, but Leah...no, no, this can't happen. Not like this, no..."

Avlen chewed his lower lip, then inhaled deeply. "I sensed something was amiss when I first came upon you two in the snow, but I've confirmed it just now so listen and listen well. There is no 'both' here, there is only 'he' as in, 'he is dying.' The girl does not exist, not in the sense of what you're thinking."

Mikael stared up at him, his expression slowly turning from one of shocked anguish to anger. "What do you mean, there is no both? Can't you do anything to help them?"

Avlen stepped closer and knelt, carefully laying a hand atop Leah's head. "This child here is no child, human. She might have been once, but no more...there is little more than an arcane construct here, and a very good one at that. And furthermore..."

He looked at Datavian then, tilting his head; the human male was still wheezing, his chest heaving. The man brought to mind an image of a drowning person, very curious in the blue's mind as he had never personally witnessed anyone or anything drown.

"Furthermore, the soul within this construct, animating it, is nothing more than a piece of that man's."

He looked over to see Mikael staring at him, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly.

"Listen," Avlen said firmly, reaching out to instead grip Mikael by the shoulders. "I'm sorry, but this child does not exist. This...creature, made to look like a child, is just a work of arcane - a sick, twisted work, in that it was meant to fool those around it, and that it has so-called family that loves it now...but it isn't real. It's an empty vessel holding-"

Mikael jerked away, staring at the ground in front of him. "No...I don't want to believe you, but..." His thoughts went back to when Daranara had surprised him within the room that housed the tree, on the Hssriii'rhak's homeworld. He had sensed her then, and also sensed what he had thought was Datavian with her...but it had been Leah, not Datavian.

If Leah was truly just an empty vessel with a piece of his brother's soul inside of it...

He ground the heels of his palms into his eye sockets and let out a frustrated groan. "You are right...you must be right. I wondered at the time, but..." Mikael looked up at Avlen then, bleary-eyed, a look of dejection on his face.

Avlen looked between the "girl" and the mage, drumming his fingers against his thighs. "Human...you cannot save them both, but perhaps you can save one."

"How? What do I do? Tell me!" Mikael sputtered, almost pleading.

"You are a warlock, are you not? Souls should be your specialty. Simply take what doesn't belong, and put it where it does." Avlen stood, taking a moment to search his considerable memory for any sort of spell that could possibly bolster the ailing man's strength. "But hurry, I daresay you don't have much time to spare."

* * *

The courier simply appeared at Varian's elbow and nearly lost his head because of it, but his message was clear:

The mages knew how to shut the portal, and all of the forces outside of Stormwind needed to fall back within the city.

Varian gave the command and the combined forces of Stormwind and Ironforge engaged in a fighting retreat and then, for the first time in his reign, Varian ordered the gates of Stormwind shut.

A handful of creatures made it through the gates before they shut entirely, but were quickly cut down by those who were standing there, waiting for them.

Varian, surrounded by his personal guard, with Magni nearby and with the military forces all milling around and filling the streets of Stormwind from just beyond the bridge to the Trade District, stood and waited for some sort of sign that the mages had done what they claimed they could do.

* * *

Tal'Thera, linked together with two other female mages as they scried, tracked the two figures through the trees. As soon as the trio of women had confirmed the figures were in position, the rest of the small group of mages gathered here - barely a score of them - would move out and take up their positions, ready to strike.

Finally, the two were in position.

"Go, now," one of the women - Tal'Thera could not remember ever being introduced to her - ordered.

Immediately, the room they stood in was a lot less crowded.

* * *

The Hssriii'rhak holding open his gate was unaware that he had been found within the group of his kind that clustered around the gate. He was concentrating on doing what he had been ordered to do, even though the voice of his goddess had gone strangely silent; it was not his place to question, however, only to obey.

And so he did. But admittedly he was confused when a sudden pain blossomed in his chest.

He looked down to see the hilt and several inches of blade jutting from his chest like a banner. Even as he reached up to pluck it free a suddenly movement caught his eye. Materializing seemingly from nowhere a boot, attached to a foot attached to a leg attached to a blood elf, slammed into the blade and drove it in up to the hilt and then some; the Hssriii'rhak was then very not concerned with holding the gate open, and more concerned about his surely fatal wound.

But the blood elf was not done.

He used the Hssriii'rhak like a springboard and flipped once in the air before landing nimbly on the ground and rushing forward, another blade in hand that flashed out once, twice, three times - each slash opened a gaping gash in the Hssriii'rhak's throat and sent a spray of blood high into the air.

As the gate keeper dropped the other Hssriii'rhak were turning to meet t he blood elf's challenge.

The blood elf simply shrugged and bowed, and from over his head came the leaping form of a snarling, bristling felhound that fell into the midst of the Hssriii'rhak and wasted no time in latching on to the nearest and beginning to drain.

As the Hssriii'rhak screeched and flailed, even as it died, the blood elf spun on his heel and took off in a sprint, leaving the felhound to deal with the remaining serpent beasts.

He did not run far, however, as the mages he knew to be watching him opened a portal in his path, giving him a method of escape. Without hesitating he dove through.

* * *

Tal'Thera felt the scrying link dissolve as the other two women dropped from it. She sought out and then sank gratefully into a chair, feeling very drained, and was not at all surprised when a portal opened in the room and her father spilled out of it.

Malchoir looked at his one remaining, bloodied dagger then, panting, turned his attention to Tal'Thera.

"Can we PLEASE go home now?"

Tal'Thera shook her head slowly. "I will tell you this once, father: I am home, and if you care at all about me and my happiness, you will leave me be."

"You don't belong here," Malchoir snapped. "You don't belong among these traitorous dogs!"

"I belong where I say I belong, and I belong here in Alliance territory with my husband," she said evenly. "Nothing you say or do will deter me from this path, father. Go home, return to Silvermoon if you wish...but I will not be accompanying you."

Malchoir stared at her for a long moment, then pushed a stray strand of sweaty hair from his face. "When in the hell did you grow a backbone? What happened to my meek little waif of a daughter?"

Tal'Thera smiled thinly at him. "Once she escaped the box she was placed in, she discovered how to grow up. I'm not a child anymore, father."

"I know, dearest, I know," he sighed heavily. "I just wish...could you not at least relocate somewhere closer to home?"

Her smile grew a bit broader. "I shall keep that in mind, but I promise nothing."

Malchoir snorted. He looked down at the bloodied dagger in his hand again, made as though he was going to resheath it, then simply let it drop to the floor. "Very well. I suppose it would be wrong of me to force the matter. I'm going to...slip out a back door, before that king has time to deal with my presence here."

"Goodbye, father."

"Goodbye."

As simply as that, their goodbyes said, Malchoir ducked out the door and disappeared from view. Tal'Thera leaned her head against the back of the chair and closed her eyes, her thoughts on her husband.

She was finally, truly, free.

* * *

Pit knew when Yoekai'rhak was no longer a threat. He felt it inside him...like a rope had snapped, and everything had come crashing down. At once he began to sweat, and to shake, and a purple-tinted liquid had dropped from him like a rain; Mikael too released a great deal of the same watery gunk, though he was otherwise engaged and paid it no mind whatsoever.

Pit had the strange feeling he knew what the liquid was; an image of the purple liquid that had filled the well he had briefly been imprisoned in with Mikael came to mind. Was he now sweating out that well's corruption? Possibly. This purple stuff certainly looked like what he'd been essentially stewing in for a brief period of time.

The elf claiming to be a blue dragon conjured a tiny vial and carefully scooped up a bit of the liquid, but otherwise paid it no mind either.

Once he was done sweating out, Pit felt drained, powerless. It was a glorious feeling.

* * *

Thrall was not certain when Saliea had left him in the battle, and in fact was not even aware she had until one of his lieutenants had approached him.

"I saw 'er runnin' to da west. Should I have stopped 'er, Warchief?"

Thrall had simply shook his head. "No. Let her go - in fact, under no circumstances is anyone to bother her, or otherwise prevent her from going where she pleases." He looked to where his sobering, cloak-wrapped bundle lay carefully across the back of his wolf, and in the back of his mind he could just as easily believe that he too may have been just a cloth-wrapped body. "She has more than earned the right to safe passage. We may be enemies the next we meet, but for now let her go."

Saliea, on her ill-tempered borrowed wolf, was rapidly traveling as far from Orgrimmar as she could get, angling north in the hopes of reaching the safety of Ashenvale by nightfall.


	12. Chapter 12

Varian had thought he'd never see anything as strange as witnessing the walls of Stormwind lined with casting mages, throwing up a shield that did not encompass Stormwind but rather that area which contained the collapsing portal - the shield managed to stand firm against the raging storm of energy within it, and hours afterward a few determined druids and mages had ventured out to ensure the area was safe.

What they found were partially crystallized trees and grass, an effect all had assured Varian was easily reversible; with the shield having contained the portal's released energies, the only loss of life were those who initially fell to the rush of the creatures.

It was indeed a strange sight to see. And yet, Varian was now hearing a story that made that sight seem tame by comparison.

He sat upon his throne, chin resting in the palm of one hand with his elbow propped up on the arm of his seat, and stared silently and evenly at the dark-haired man who stood before him.

This was Mikael Sullivan, son of James Sullivan, once a paladin but now a warlock - supposedly forced down that path when tragedy struck his family years ago. There was a murder, and a kidnapping, Koulson and Datavian Sullivan respectively, mother and son, but then...the son that was supposedly kidnapped returned and proclaimed himself the killer.

All of this Varian had been informed of prior to meeting with James Sullivan earlier that day, and now he spoke with the son...and it was odd, to be sure, for both men were pleading for leniency for the very same Datavian Sullivan that had murdered Koulson.

Needless to say it was giving Varian a headache, listening to this wild story of mad gods and slavery, and of dead worlds.

Finally, Mikael reached the end of his tale and stood, nervously, staring at his king.

Varian returned the stare evenly for several moments, then cleared his throat. "That was quite a story, and one with a great deal of nothing to confirm any of that as being factual."

Mikael swallowed. "I swear to you, upon my honor, upon my father's honor, that every word I've spoken was true. Datavian has...been freed from his enslavement. My lord, he wasn't fully in control of his actions, he was forced against his will-"

"I will decide whether he was forced or not," Varian interrupted, holding up a hand to silence the warlock, "once I have had a chance to speak with him."

"He is very ill," Mikael said quietly after a moment, his gaze dropping to his boots. "He has not yet awakened...I'm worried he may never wake again."

"Then the question of his innocence or guilt will remain unanswered until then," Varian said firmly. "Whether he was conscious of his actions or not, the fact remains that a woman was murdered by his hands."

"I know what he is going to tell you when he does wake," Mikael retorted, his expression strained. "His guilt over everything that has happened is foremost on his mind. It was there when we spoke, when I was chained to the bottom of the arcane well. It was because of his guilt that he welcomed his death so readily...he knows he had no control over himself, he made that very clear to me then and yet..." Mikael paused, his hands curling into fists. "And yet, if I know him, he will assign all blame to himself, and ask you for a swift death."

"And if I grant it?"

Mikael looked up, alarmed. "Surely you wouldn't condemn an innocent man."

"His innocence remains to be seen. Now, if-"

Varian stopped, looking up as a guard came running up the hallway, all but bursting into the throne room and hurrying around where Mikael stood.

"M-my king," the guard panted, looking as though he'd like nothing more than to bend double and pant like a dog. "There's...t-there's a d-dragon, a blue dragon, in the harbor. He's r-requested to speak with you...and with him," the guard added, glancing sideways at Mikael.

Varian looked between the guard and the warlock, and was looking right at Mikael when a look of realization came over the man's face.

Varian's eyes narrowed. "Explain."

"It must be Avlen," Mikael said quietly, rubbing a hand over his face. "I had no idea he'd be returning this soon."

"Returning? Why?"

Mikael's smile was grim, sad. "For a funeral, of course."

* * *

Avlen, a fully-grown blue dragon, was perched delicately on a ledge in the harbor, examining the features of a large stone lion, when Varian, Mikael, and Varian's Royal Guards arrived.

"Greetings, King Wrynn," Avlen said, lowering himself down so that his head was not towering over the humans. "And hello once more, warlock Mikael Sullivan."

"What business brings a blue dragon to Stormwind?" Varian asked, peering up at the large eye fixated on him.

"Unfortunate, sad business, I'm afraid," Avlen said softly.

He shifted from his perch, moving to the side, and left sitting on the stone a child-sized bundle; behind Varian, Mikael sucked in his breath with a loud hiss.

"Sad business indeed," the blue went on. "As I agreed, warlock, here is the child, such as it is: sound and whole, and examined."

"What did you discover?" Mikael asked after a moment. He carefully stepped around his king and went to retrieve Leah's remains.

"A great deal, actually. The man's soul left quite an imprint on the construct, enough so that I learned a great deal about what happened and what magics were involved."

As he spoke, the dragon was quickly shrinking down into his elven form, appearing once more as a blue-eyed high elf; he adjusted his pants and tunic - both a skyblue in color - and then stepped forward to nod at Varian before turning to place both Varian and Mikael more or less in front of him.

"So far as I can tell the construct was actually a true, human child at some point in its existence...there were very faint traces of a separate soul within it, but as for the true child's actual age I cannot be certain as the girl was magically aged and altered. It...disturbingly reminds me of an unfortunate creation we blue dragons once destroyed - in that case it was a deranged father meddling with his stillborn son, attempting to instill life where there wasn't any."

Avlen paused, tapping a finger against his lower lip. "Let's see...further study showed that, whatever it was originally, it ultimately became little more than a vessel for the fragments of your brother's soul...at first. This may even be how that woman retained her control over him, both literally through the heavy enchantments and metaphysically through the perceived bond of father and child, but the main problem seemed to be that, because the construct was treated as a true human being - an actual living creature - it began to develop a...well, a life of its own, so to speak. The more it thought of itself as an actual existing person, and not as a construct, the weaker the enchants binding both the soul within it and the mind of the mage became."

The dragon-turned-elf paused, waved his hand, and conjured a heavy tome from midair. "If you are curious I can show you the disciplines and theorems used to come to my conclusions-"

"Wait a moment," Varian interrupted, inhaling deeply. "Are you implying that...that story of mad gods and wild magic, is truthful?"

The dragon peered at him from over the tome, pausing in the process of flipping through its numerous pages. "Implying? Not at all. Confirming? Definitely."

Varian pinched the bridge of his nose and blew out his breath. "I think I've had quite enough of gods, Old ones or otherwise. Just tell me this: is the danger passed?"

"Most definitely," Avlen said, simply snapping his book shut now that he saw no one was interested in the technical parts of his explanation. "I unraveled the matrix myself, and-" he reached into his tunic and produced a beaker full of a very fine, very white sand, and tossed it to the monarch.

Varian caught it easily and looked at it warily. "And this is?"

"-and that is all that remains of the well of corrupted arcane magic," Avlen said with a sniff. "I...will admit I can no longer get back into that compound - the entire place seems to have collapsed - but I did retrieve a sample of the arcane-charged water. By the time I had returned to my home, it had degenerated into the sand you see there. Perfectly harmless. And when I went back to take another sample, the well was full of the same sand...and then the ceiling promptly caved in on me, but that is entirely a different matter."

"So the threat is gone?"

Avlen nodded. "The threat is indeed gone."

Varian nodded, then tossed the beaker of sand back to the dragon. "I've heard all I need to then."

Mikael carefully hefted Leah's body and came back to stand in front of the king. "Does my father...do I...still need to plead my brother's case?"

Varian's look was carefully neutral. "I have heard all I need to." With a gesture to his guards, Varian turned and walked away, no doubt heading back to Stormwind Keep.

Mikael watched him go for a moment, then looked over to Avlen. "You know where I live."

"I do. We are still agreed then?"

"Of course. I always keep my word."

"Very well. Oh, and the magic preserving that body won't last forever...you'd best bury her now, while you still have something to bury at all."

Mikael nodded, then walked away himself, trailing far behind Varian but not intending to return to the Keep. Behind him he heard the rush of air and the beating of wings and did not need to turn to know that the blue had shifted and flown away; for now, he let his feet carry him back to the Cathedral of Light, where the paladins there awaited his solemn bundle.

* * *

Three days later, and a day after Mikael had buried his "niece", Datavian woke.

He was terribly weak and ill, hardly able to speak...but fully able to give voice to his grief when Mikael gently broke the news of Leah's death; it was a heartbreaking scene to be sure, seeing the three Sullivan men - all that remained of the Sullivan family - grieving a child that truthfully only Datavian had truly known.

As expected, Datavian had immediately wished to see the grave. It was James who flat out refused - his son could barely open his eyes and lift his head from his pillows. As macabre as it sounded, James knew that Leah would not be going anywhere, anytime soon; the grave would always be there, a tiny plot next to Koulson's - grandmother and granddaughter together, though they had never known one another.

In the time following Datavian's awakening, Mikael and James devoted themselves to his care until it was certain the mage would not die suddenly on them; James, being as he lived within the cathedral, would continue to assist in Datavian's care the best that he could - his own health not being the greatest would limit what he could do, but it did nothing to dim his spirit and his will to do it - while Mikael returned to his wife and his home on the border of Elwynn, riding in daily to visit.

Finally, a day came when Varian did come to speak with Datavian.

He stood at the foot of the bed and for a moment just studied him; laying helpless in bed the man looked frail, weak...sickly, and hardly a threat. And Datavian barely had the energy to last through the entire interview, but in the end it was the mage's own words that gave Varian pause.

"If you have any mercy in your heart for a broken man, grant me a swift death or give me a reason to continue living," Datavian had finally asked, exhausted.

The following day a letter came, bearing Varian's seal; Mikael read it aloud, as it was Datavian's "sentence" for his role in Koulson Sullivan's death:

Datavian was now subject entirely to the king's will, and would thus be serving wherever Varian thought fit, as soon as his health permitted, and the first thing Varian had in mind was work within Stormwind's library - coding and indexing the books; cleaning, restoring, and repairing where neccessary; discovering the whereabouts of missing tomes and cross-referencing which ones were within Stormwind and which were now in the hands of the Kirin Tor; and of course assisting any who came there seeking information. Considering the size of the library and the immense work load hinted at within the letter, it seemed a punishment even a dedicated scholar would balk at, but James and Mikael counted themselves blessed that Varian had not decided to put Datavian in prison or, even worse, put him to death.

Datavian merely accepted his punishment with only a weary nod and no comment, his expression unreadable.

Nearly two weeks after Datavian had awakened, Mikael himself woke in the dead of night. He was not startled awake, there were no dreams or noises to blame. He simply was awake, and that was that.

For several long moments he lay in the dark, staring up at his ceiling and listening to the soft breathing of Tal'Thera beside him; he finally determined he would not be falling back asleep anytime soon, and so carefully removed himself from the sheets and got out of bed, quietly padding barefoot into the kitchen area.

He retrieved an apple from the bowl upon the table and was about to bite into it when he heard a quiet growling from outside; he dropped the fruit back into the bowl and carefully, quietly walked to his front door, listening.

Jhuunom was outside the door, just on the other side of it it sounded like, and he was just growling...nothing more to indicate a threat, just a constant, low growl.

Mikael gripped the doorhandle and then tugged the door open a moment later. The felhound looked up at his master, then sat tamely at his heels, his growls ceasing as Mikael's gaze fell upon the reason for them.

He silently raised a finger to his lips, but stepped back and gestured for his guest to enter.

Avlen nodded without speaking and came inside, stepping in just enough to allow Mikael to close the door behind him. Once the door was shut Mikael peered anxiously through doorways in the direction of his bedroom, but there was no indication - or reason, really - that Tal'Thera had awakened in that short period of time.

"I will retrieve it, stay here," Mikael whispered then.

He padded silently into the study he shared with his wife, and carefully removed a book from the shelf, then returned to where he'd left the dragon standing in his doorway and handed the book to him.

"There is only one other book like this in existence, and it remains in the hands of the Prophet of the draenei," Mikael went on. "It is full of magic best forgotten."

Avlen opened the cover and thumbed through it, blinking in the near-dark. "This shall prove an interesting read, mortal. My thanks. I do so enjoy learning new things."

"And the others?"

"Xiali- er, that is, Pathora, checked on your friend Saliea. Her entire family is well, and in fact were rather concerned that they hadn't heard from you despite Pathora's insistence that all was well. Unfortunately...I believe an acquaintance of yours, an orc mage of all things, perished in battle - and what a battle it was! She blew a crater in the plains of Durotar that won't be easily filled in, nor forgotten."

Mikael's face fell. "Meraka...a brave female, and an intelligent mage. I can't...it's hard to hear that she's gone."

"Pathora even checked on that blood elf warlock. It appears he's gone off into the Barrens with a tauren female, picking flowers or some such nonsense. He seems well, so nothing to worry about there either."

Mikael stared at his bare feet for a long moment, then nodded. "Then all is well, or as well as one could hope."

Avlen nodded and bowed. "My condolences on the loss of your orc friend, and my congratulations on the upcoming birth of your first offspring."

"Thank you, for both...and," Mikael paused a moment, licking his lips. "And thank you for helping me save my brother. I would have never known, nor even thought-"

Avlen held up his hands. "Let's not get too terribly emotional, warlock. If there had been no hope, I would not have spoken up. As it is, he would not have survived without my intervention, and as I promised in return for this tome I now hold I will do my utmost to ensure the rest of the blue dragonflight never catches wind of him. We are embroiled in war, and while we obey Malygos not all of us agree with the wanton slaughter of the mortal races. Those under my command, and that of Haleh's, are more concerned with the preservation of knowledge than the extermination of arcane users."

"Would they seek him out?" Mikael asked, brow furrowing.

"If curious enough, possibly. If Malygos himself ever learns of what happened he will likely order his death on the spot. I will do what I can to prevent that from happening, or at least give you fair enough warning that such an act has been ordered." The dragon paused, drumming his fingers on the tome silently. "How DOES the man fare?"

Mikael frowned and shrugged. "He's alive, but wishes he were dead. He won't speak hardly at all, and often not to anyone aside from myself, my wife, and my father. I believe he hates me for saving him...and in all honesty I hate myself."

Avlen raised an inquiring eybrow, and Mikael grimaced.

"I...was not entirely truthful with him, about Leah," Mikael went on, slowly. "If I told him the truth it would destroy him...shatter him moreso than he is now. So far as my brother knows, he survived the strain of Daranara's death, but Leah did not. I don't have the heart to tell him otherwise."

"Perhaps it is better that he never knows then," Avlen said with a nod. "And it would do you well to teach him the difference between true and assumed guilt, before it eats him alive."

Mikael nodded and inhaled deeply. "Yes. He has a long road ahead of him - it will take time for all wounds to heal, and for him to learn how to live again. I just hope he's strong enough..."

"Warlock, after everything that man has gone through, and everything he's done, if he's not strong enough now then I venture he was never strong enough in the first place," Avlen commented dryly. "I will take my leave."

The dragon opened the door, stepped outside, and then promptly disappeared with a rush of displaced air, startling Jhuunom and sending the demon into a bout of snarling with his hackles raised.

Mikael reached down and patted his head, mentally ordering him silent. He had meant it when he told the blue that he hated himself for lying, but at the time it had seemed the right thing to do; Mikael all too vividly remember the look on Datavian's face when he had told him of Leah's passing - how much worse would it have been if he'd known the truth?

"And really, what does it matter now..." he murmured.

Mikael himself knew the importance of releasing the past - his own past had haunted him right up to where he'd thought he had killed his brother and then became possessed by the crazed Eredar Drasai. It had been what had driven him, and in the end it had been all he had focused on...and he'd nearly lost so much because of it. Dwelling on the past was useless, and the past could not help him now.

He would need to be there to help Datavian move beyond the past, and show him that the future was worth living for. He, Tal'Thera, James...Datavian still had family, and they loved him. Whatever the future held, they would finally be able to face it together. As a family.

* * *

In his room in the cathedral there was a single window. It was small and very high up on the wall, but wide enough that in the earliest hours of the day it allowed the moonlight to stream in just before night turned to day. If he had been a poetic sort he would almost say it pooled around him, viscous and suffocating, but he knew it was not moonlight that suffocated him.

Leah was gone. Dead. He'd been unable to save her, after everything was said and done. His little girl...gone. And he too weak to even visit her final resting place, despite the burning, painful desire he had to do so.

Datavian stared up at the window, a bright spot in the darkness. Leah had been his bright spot, his one joy in a life full of darkness, a life he had expected to end in darkness and such a darkness he was more than willing to accept if it meant the survival of his daughter, and that of his brother...and that of the world of Azeroth.

And yet...

He paused in this thinking, feigning sleep as he heard the soft click of the door latch lifting; it was no doubt one of the many priests and paladins who tended to him - it may have even been his father James, for all Datavian knew or cared. He wished they would all leave him be, let him perish as he so desperately wanted to do.

He knew he could end his own life, and easily. As weak as he was...

And yet he could not. It was not out of cowardice that made him pause, but out of further guilt. The pain his father, his brother, would suffer if Datavian died now after having lived through everything else.

Guilt suffocated him, but it also kept his heart beating.

He laid there, pretending to be asleep, until he heard the door softly close once more, then opened his eyes and stared up at the moonlight once more.

Now he thought upon his "punishment" as handed down by King Wrynn. An attendant in the Stormwind library, repairing and otherwise organizing the information there. Such a simple, stupid punishment. Surely there was more to what Wrynn wished of him, something he had not revealed just yet, for in his heart Datavian fervently believed he deserved much, much worse, and he ached for a punishment suitable to relieve the guilt-

Again he paused and faked sleep as the door opened again, but this time whomever was there came into the room and closed the door behind them; the person came into the small room and settled into the chair pulled up to Datavian's bedside, and the light of the moon streaming in threw Mikael Sullivan's features into half-shadows, but there was no mistaking who sat there.

"You are up late," Datavian wheezed, his voice barely above a whisper but sounding as loud as thunder in the dead silence of the room.

Mikael smiled and looked over at him. "Actually, I believe I'm up early," he responded. "I couldn't sleep."

Silence fell over them, neither comfortable nor awkward, just simply there. After a while, Mikael shifted and leaned forward in his chair, resting his forearms across his knees and letting his hands hang between his knees.

"We're going to name him Cyrik, if it's a boy," he said into the silence. "Cyrik was the name of Tal'Thera's great grandfather. She thinks it will go great lengths to soothing her father...he's still rather angry at her decision to remain in Alliance-held lands. If it's a girl, we were thinking Mara."

Datavian lay silent in the bed, staring at the ceiling, but he smiled.


End file.
